My dad, sister and I used to play Monopoly every Sunday night. I usually hated it and didn't mind being the first to lose so I could go curl up on the couch with a book. We still like playing it when we get the chance. My dad and little sister play it now, even though it's a two-person game.
I learned a lot of life lessons from those games. Besides the obvious ones of basic math (which I shamefully admit I lost when I took Algebra I and II with Mr. Hansen) and being financially minded. Here's my top 5,
1. How to lose.
Dad still always wins (against his daughters, anyway). Just ask my little sister. When the three of us played it on Easter Sunday, things were looking bad for her. (And me, too.) Dad had hotels up on St. Charles, Virginia and State. I had a couple of houses on Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, but no one landed there. And I think my little sister had the Baltic & Mediterranean monopoly. (Which my brother-in-law won with the last time I played with him, by the way.) About two turns away from her last, she pouted and sulked on the couch. I went in there, gave her a pep talk and she came back to the table. I'd like to say my motivational speech gave her all the enthusiasm she needed to come back to the table and beat us all, but that's not the case. She was still the first one out, and I think it was my tickling more than my words that got her off the couch.
2. How to make the best of a bad situation.
It really is rare to get a monopoly by landing on all the places before anyone else does. Sometimes you can get two of the three, but a lot of times, someone else has the one you need. We always allowed trading, which helped me learn to look at multiple options to find the optimum one.
3. Be honest and don't steal.
My sister and I both learned this the same night. It was one of the first times we had ever played and my dad, who was the banker, got up to get a drink of water. When his back was turned, she and I each took a dollar from the bank, thinking it would help us win. When we didn't, we thought it was cosmic punishment for stealing. It wasn't until later that we realized a dollar in Monopoly money is going to do you about as much good in Monopoly as it would in a vending machine.
I also taught my little sister a lesson in honesty and integrity when we played on Easter. My dad had let her take over for his spot while he put a pizza in the oven and when I made my final stop on Ventnor Avenue with $4 to my name, she said, "I can just pretend I didn't see you land there." I told her that it wouldn't be honest of me to let that happen. I knew I had landed there and I knew that I owed her money. That, and I just wanted the game to end. It had been a long game and a long day and a long weekend.
4. Playing nice is more important than winning.
My sister and I would often help each other out when one of us owed Dad outrageous rent. This was a lesson that carried over with us into high school curling, when we skipped opposing teams my senior and her freshman year. (The Daily Register really missed out on a great feature there, but they were probably busy with my high school basketball team making it to the semi-finals in the state tournament.)
5. Things aren't always what they seem.
Sure, it's nice to get the Boardwalk-Park Place monopoly, but it costs $2000 to get hotels put on those puppies. On the other hand, I saw my dad opt out of buying Baltic Avenue when we played with my brother-in-law for the first time. So it got auctioned off and my brother-in-law bought it. Nobody else wanted it, so he got it dirt cheap, too. Then he landed on Mediterranean and hotels were up before we knew it. It only cost him $500 to build to capacity, and he whipped our trash. Of course, we were playing with 4 people and that was the only monopoly on the board, but just goes to show...
No comments:
Post a Comment