The Games We Didn’t Play

The other night, after the kids were in bed, Julie and I decided to play a game. We then went through the list of possibilities:

Ticket to Ride: One of my personal favorites. Julie shot it down; we played it together once and Julie decided the 2-player version was not fun.

Sequence: This time we both agreed that the 2-player version left a lot to be desired.

UNO, Rook, or other card games: No. Not in the mood.

Yahtzee: Maybe, but it’s probably too noisy and we would soon have a five player game, in stead of two player, so not tonight.


Rummikub: It’s a dumb name. That and the fact that every time Julie & I play this game, it ends in an argument. It’s always the same argument too, but I can’t remember the exact details. It has something to do with substituting a tile in your hand for a wild or something like that. Then Julie accuses me of taking liberties with the rules, I open the rule book and demonstrate exactly why my move is complex, but perfectly legal. She compares it to all of the complex, but “legal” moves at Enron, AIG, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and every other failed, corrupt institution. I compare her views to obtuse regulators that like to kill patients in order to stop the spread of a non-communicable disease. She says I’m in Banking and know nothing about disease. I try to explain that I was speaking metaphorically and that it means that there isn’t a financial problem that regulators can’t make worse. She says I’m in Banking and know nothing about metaphors. I explain that regulators are a necessary evil, but more evil than necessary. She says that’s irrelevant.

It never ends well.

We haven’t played the game in six years. We nearly had an argument about what the Rummikub argument was about. If Julie reads this post, she will undoubtedly say that our arguments never went anything like that and point out that if we haven’t had this argument in six years, than the entire diatribe about regulators, Lehman, Enron & metaphors could never have happened. We agreed to never mention Rummikub again.

Chocolate-opoly: I don’t like this one, so I didn’t even mention it.

Every Other Game in our Closet: Need more people, not in the mood, etc.


Boggle: I always bring this one up last, because it’s the game we always play. I get the big words, Julie gets the little words. The tattered, formerly-paper-backed Merriam-Webster settles all disputes. I have at least one long, quasi-word in each round. Julie always finds a few extra onomatopoeic words of dubious quality. I suppose “dit” is a word, referring to the non-dash part of Morse code, but it’s a lesser word. If we can demote Pluto to “dwarf planet” status, surely words like “dit” can be demoted to midget-words. They would no longer count in games like Boggle and Scrabble, and would be ineligible for crosswords. They could be in dictionaries with proper footnotes, like they have for “ain’t,” that let all users know that these words are really midget-words and are only included for completeness.

By this time Julie was into her second game of Cash Cow 2 on the Webkinz site and just responded with a u-huh to every thing I said. I laid down on the bed, waiting for her to finish so we could play, *sigh*, Boggle.

An hour later, I woke up when Julie asked me if I can remember the password to one of the on-line bill pay sites. I mumbled incoherently about midget-words and metaphors. Then I drifted off again, thinking of all the games we didn’t play.

Apple to Apples

The other day, we invited two other families over for dinner. Afterward, we decided to play a game of Apples to Apples. For those of you who are not familiar with this game, Apples to Apples consists of two sets of “apple” cards: green ones (adjectives) and red ones (nouns). Each round one player turns over a green adjective card and the other players chose the red noun card from their hand that, in their opinion, best matches the adjective. I like this game because with the right players, wit and humor are rewarded. With the wrong players, well, never mind. So we began the game with six adults… After the first two rounds, two eight-year-old girls and an illiterate five year-old girl entered the room and in giddy, squeaky voices said, nearly in unison, “I love Apples to Apples, can I play?” Seeing as only two of the girls belonged to me, I started to say, “of course not; you won’t understand half the words and at least one of you will cry if you don’t win.” But I quickly realized how ungracious it would be so I shortened my sentence to, “Of course.” And then there were nine.

Now you may be wondering, 'how do you play with a five year-old who can’t read?' Well, as long as she is the only illiterate player, then she selects a random card and places it in the pile. If no one else claims the winning card, then it must be hers. You would think that six college educated adults and two semi-literate elementary school kids would have no problem beating a randomly selected card by an illiterate five-year-old, but you would be wrong. More on that later.

One round after the girls joined, three eleven year-old boys entered the room, which ultimately made us an even dozen. That’s a lot of apples, nouns, and adjectives.

The game quickly devolved like this:

Eight year-old girl #1, reading through the nouns to determine which she thought best matched her adjective: “Princess D.I., there’s a D.I. princess?!”

Parent: “That’s Princess Di.”

Eight year-old girl #2: “Princess Die? Did she die or something?”

Another parent: “As a matter of fact she did…”

Eight year-old girl #2, interrupting: “Then shouldn’t it be Princess Dead, not Die?”

Another parent, continuing: “Di is short for Diana”

The adjective was irrelevant; the D.I. Princess card won.

The eleven year-olds also changed the dynamics. What adjective aptly describes a Giant Squid, a School Cafeteria, and Chickens? These were the finalists according to one 11-year-old for the word, glitzy. The next 11 year-old had to select a noun to match “honorable,” and determined Charging Rhinos to be the most honorable. Cleaning Bathrooms, Picking Your Nose, Vomit, the nouns were obvious, even if their connection to the adjective at hand was not.

So now back to our five year-old. You might be tempted to believe that it was the randomness of her selections that appealed to the younger players, but it turns out her selections appealed to the more rational thinking. For example, the adjective was “spooky,” the chosen selection? Darth Vader. Everyone was surprised to discover that the card belonged to the five year-old that couldn’t read.

When the clock struck eight, and we ended the game, the five year-old had won three times. I had only won twice. Several adults hadn’t won a single round. The wit and humor had to be reward enough.