Even as an Adult...

My dad kicks my ass in Monopoly.  And every one else's.  My goodnight kiss included a, "sorry I beat you bad."  Can you feel the love?

Brother decided it was time for some family bonding in the form of board games tonight.  This coming from a guy who never agreed to play board games or card games or any games that didn't include a ball.  Ever.  Ok, that's not exactly true.  He did play games until about the age of 12 when he caught on to the fact that we had a dad who never just let us win.  Nope, you had to earn it.

So, here we are, 16 years later and brother reasons that because we're adults now, no way one of us won't win, "We're smarter now, Laurie."

Wrong.

That's right.  The money was divided, pieces chosen, dice rolled to determine who would go first - and before you know it, dad's got $5,000, mom has $6, brother has had to sell his 1 hotel and mortgage his 5 properties, and i'm bankrupting on dad's 3 hotel property which rents for $950 every time you land on the damn thing.  It was my second time.  Oh, and i'm the one who agreed to sell him the final property he needed to make said monopoly.  I had Boardwalk AND Parkplace, I thought for sure I had it in the bag.

Wrong.

Here's the best part.  We all like to win.  In the beginning brother was talking a lot of shit.  I was driving hard bargains.  And mom was doing what she does best, getting tickled (that's southern for laughing).  When mom gets tickled, I get tickled.  We'd spent the day together shopping for more stuff for my move and this (getting tickled) had already happened a few times.

Side story:  One time we got so tickled (i'm already laughing - mom, I know you are too) in an Arby's drive-thru.  Present for this - mom, brother and me.  We all wanted fried chicken sandwiches.  Mom got irritated with the poor guy taking our order.  Something had to have been going on because I don't remember any other time we picked up Arby's for dinner growing up.  When I say something had to have been going on, I mean mom must have been irritated about something before we even got there.  She ended up hollering at the guy when he asked for clarification on fried or grilled chicken on the sandwiches, "THE CHICK-FIL-A KIND!"  I can't tell you why we thought this was so funny, but we did.  Mom and I did.  We got so tickled we couldn't finish the order, brother had to come up from the back of the van to do it.  Mom couldn't pull around because she was tearing up, which further irritated brother.  She probably tinkled herself.  I know I did.  Brother regularly either gets irritated during these episodes or joins along.  That's the best and it happened tonight - the three of us laughing so hard there's little noise, faces turn red, and tears flow.

Anyway, I digress.  The giggle phase happened when the absurdity of the game unraveling began.  Once we got through that it was all downhill.  Brother started throwing money and property, mom didn't know what to do, and I had dropped the F-bomb about 19 times.  He. always. wins.  Brother decided sticking around to watch it all fall apart wasn't worth his time, so he left after closing up shop.  Mom and I folded shortly after.

As I was saying, in my family, we all like to win, but we all know how to lose with, dare I say, grace.  When you know how to handle losing, you appreciate the victories that much more.  I grew up getting a trophy for every little league team I played on and this idea of "everyone is a winner" seems to have gotten way out of hand lately.  There is always a winner and there is always a winner.  Sorry kids, the sooner you accept it, the better.  I've been through some pretty painful losses - losses against my high school rival because my team couldn't put penalty shots in the goal, losing a regional softball tournament because one of my teammates decided she just didn't feel like showing up, runner up at the state championship while the other team's fans heckled us like we were in the NFL.  I hated every gruesome minute of those losses.  Thinking back on them sends a twinge of pain through me.  But i've also been a part of great victories - an underdog win at a soccer tournament (we won every game and then climbed the highest, steepest hill i've ever laid eyes on to celebrate), a grand slam in little league coach's pitch (I was the only girl on the team and my brother had given me a black eye during warm up - he has a mean curve), i've got gold medals and a championship ring, I even scored a winning goal to send my team to the very championship we'd lost the year before (we won this time and then headed to our senior prom).

So you see, thanks to dad kicking my ass in Monopoly at 12, and again at 28, i'm a better, more well rounded person.  Now I just need to figure out what board game I stand a chance at winning next time we play.  I'm sick of losing.