Jet Pilot
January 29, 2007 | permalink
We're big game players in my family. Going to my Mother's isn't complete without at least one night of games. Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, Pictionary, Cranium; the kinds of games where quick wits count more than luck, and you really have the opportunity to trample your opponents' pride. I know that there are some people that hold that there are no winners and no losers- that doesn't fly in my house. Competition is the name of the game.
When we were younger, my brothers and sisters and I would play games all the time, and we were a lot more competitive and a lot less scrupulous than we are now. Winning was key, and the unspoken rule was that if you could get away with it, it was legal. Moving someone's piece to a less advantageous position when they weren't looking? Hell yes. Writing words out during Pictionary to later obscure with some meaningless scribble while your partner played like it was your superior drawing was the key? Absolutely (though this really only worked in an 'All Play' situation when your opponents were distracted). Rewiring your Operation game so that it only buzzed when you wanted it to? Definitely. And Monopoly.... that was the Holy Grail of underhandedness. Stealing money from the bank was always popular, especially if you were the banker (my brother The Architect is banned for life from being the banker- he was too greedy not to get caught); but stealing other players' money and even property was perfectly alright, provided you could get away with it, to say nothing of stiffing people on rent, palming favorable Chance Cards, and underpaying for houses and hotels.
This standard of play quickly resulted in a series of shifting and uneasy alliances, one or more of us agreeing to help one of the other siblings look after their interests in exchange for the same consideration. Of course, if such an agreement became a liability, betraying your allies was a possibility as well. The political intrigues of a royal palace had nothing on us.
But that's all in the past. All of the cheating, backstabbing and intrigue was a lot of fun, for a while; really it was like another game on top of (or maybe underneath?) whatever game we were really playing. But eventually we knew all of each other's dirty tricks and lies and tells, and so the fun of the cheat fizzled out. But the fun of subjugating your siblings through superior play? That never gets old.
Anyone up for a game?
Posted in Family Matters & Random & The PastGun Shy was the last entry.
The Echo Factor is the next entry.
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Of course, there is sometimes still some backlash and bad blood over the past... The Architect and I make a particularly devastating Pictionary team, and have often been falsely accused of cheating by the others, who are no doubt jealous of our prowess.
You are hereby forbidden to EVER play games with my brother, who cheats with such fortitude and adroitness that even the calmest and least competitive of players ends up pulling his or her own hair out in frustration and confusion.
Let this be a record of said prohibition.