Monopoly

I have many fond memories of playing board games with my dad as a child. Our favorite was Monopoly. I didn't understand, though, until I was much older, that when other people played Monopoly, they just rolled the dice and moved their piece, payed their money and then ended their turn.

My dad taught me that Monopoly, like many of the board games we played, was half strategy, half story telling. Nothing made my little puppy dog happier than winning the beauty contest, even if it was second place. When I landed on Boardwalk and my dad had hotels on it, a dramatic display was expected on my part. For his, he would rub his hands together and grin maniacally, playing the part of the money-grubbing scrooge ready to take all of my hard earned money. if the tables were turned, my father would pretend to cry as he gave up his hundreds. Sometimes property was bought or left based solely on mine or my dad's feelings about the color of the card or the location of the property. I remember avoiding the reds and yellows only because their houses cost $150 each and I had trouble doing the math on that. My cousin loved Baltic and Mediterranean (the indigo set) so much that it was understood that if she was playing, she would be allowed to trade for them in some form or fashion. And at some point part way through the first half hour of play, the banker (my dad) announced a public auction or sometimes a land giveaway and randomly sold or distributed all property so that the trading and second half of the game could commence. The banker also sometimes made stacks of properties and the players had to just pick which stack they wanted (although one stack always had my cousin's indigo, one stack always had the reds or the yellows and I always seemed to want the third).

When I was older and saw how other people played the game, cut throat and overly long without the banker to move things along, I understood why so many people hated the game. One of the only people outside of my family I can even play it with is DebraLynn, who is happy to give tours of her hotels and explain the amenities that the rates are covering any time you stop by.

I look forward to teaching Sydney to play Monopoly my way. I thought that day was a year or two off, though, until Jeremy came home with Monopoly Junior.

I had never played it. The trade off for having a dad who will play adult games with humor and bend rules for kids is that he usually did those things because he couldn't stand the kid version of games and was trying to make the adult version more child friendly so that he could have someone to play with.

I have to say, though, Monopoly Junior is a much better game than my dad portrayed it to be. The theme of the board is an amusement park and the use of the ticket booths to show who owns which ride made a much easier to keep up with board. I also liked that because it was an amusement park, it was even easier to tell a story with the game and every time you payed money, it didn't feel too bad because you got to go on a ride in exchange.

We sat around the kitchen table holding hands in the air for the roller coaster, getting dizzy on the merry-go-round, and looking up at the ceiling to see the fireworks. The safari tour was a little scary until Sydney, who owned the ride, pointed out that the lion was more scared of me than I was of it and helped calm us both down. It was one of my favorite family game nights so far.

I am now filled with happy anticipation of future games of Clue, complete with outrageous accents!