So, I’m sure that you’ve been there. It’s a rainy day off of work and you decide to play a board game with your family or close friends. Research says that over half of families that will sit down and play a board game during their ‘family time’ will play Monopoly. Everyone sits down around the table with smiles on their faces to venture the tiny thimble or tiny Scottish Terrier around the board with every roll of the dice.
Since Monopoly is the 3rd most played board game in the United States (only second to chess and checkers) the odds were in my son’s favor when we agreed to sit down at the table and have some much needed family time. The game started, and as Monopoly usually will cause, the ‘winner‘ fluctuated as properties and railroads were purchased.
Monopoly holds another interesting statistic as it is the #1 game that is most likely to cause a family argument. According to an online poll, 46 percent of board game players claim a war of words ignites during the supposed fun family game time. During this race to bankrupt your loved ones, the dice is thrown harder and harder across the white square board. Curse words are mumbled under breathe as the burnt orange $100 bills are handed adjacently to the owner of Boardwalk conveniently stacked with 3 houses. The game was put on hold, so that the fires of tension of could become embers but the fire was reignited the next day. Tempers flared as concordats were drawn to help defeat the leading monopoly mogul. There were contrite feelings and penitence over the sale of certain Railroad properties.
Near the end certain players politely gave up their respected properties as penance for unpaid rental fees. It came down to an 11 year old and a grown man. The grown man would end up raking up his last white $1 bill to satisfy an imposed fee. It would turn out that selling Park Place to the money hungry kid who happens to own Boardwalk might not have been a smart move.
Looking back though, who’s to say that the frustration we went through is just a rough-hewn method of growing closer to one another. We can’t take trivial games like that to heart. We must view that time spent together as indissoluble memories that we shall all smile and remember, despite the fact that I had over $3500 in Monopoly money that was disbursed to the owner of the Boardwalk.
No….I’m not bitter.
Love, Peace and Chicken Grease
- Chris 🙂
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