8-Minute Memoir: Games

I've always loved them. As a child, I just wanted to learn how to play. I loved the colors, the tactile sensation. Winning didn't seem to matter and rules were fluid in my head. Much of the time, I was thinking about ways to change the rules in order to make the challenge greater or include new ways to play. As I grew older, winning, of course, was important, but I always felt slightly disappointed when I did. It meant the game was over; we were finished playing.

As an adult, I realized that I could learn a great deal about people by observing how they played games. I would often throw the game simply to provide me means to observe how my opponent would react to winning. This was often the case when playing online Scrabble with a person I could not see. I'd play three times, lose each time, and learn how my game partner thought and reacted. I would also learn their strategies which made it easy to beat them in subsequent games. Needless to say, I have few continuous Scrabble partners. Danny, alone, continues to play with me. For him, the game is less about winning and more about finding words on his tray.

I have two children similar to me in that they love creating and bending the rules. I have one child who hates it. To him, changing the rules means the game is no longer fair or fun. I once put together two Monopoly boards and invited my children to a game of double Monopoly. It was played, loosely, in the same way that the REAL game was played, but, of course, there were two sets of property, lots of money and houses/hotels, and four dice. In addition, I randomly announced "gifts" (because I was the banker) and distributed money whenever the whim took me.

Alex and Natalie thought the game delightful. Within 15 minutes, Chris had pronounced the game "stupid" and refused to play. This might be because I had just proclaimed a new rule because I was not only the banker, but the rule maker. Regardless, the random nature of the game left him frustrated and angry. He was so upset that we never again played Double Monopoly. Which is not to say I stopped making up rules and games. I was just more structured about it. After all, the point was to play with my kids, not make them unhappy.