If you want a game that tears families apart, play Monopoly. It will make siblings not talk to each other for days and children angry at their parents. Go on, I dare you.
Let me first say, I LOVE Monopoly. I have been playing it since I was probably 12. In addition to my Father owning a restaurant, he was also Real Estate Agent. This made him an automatic lover of Monopoly. Because he worked 70 hours a week, we would really only play it once a year- during our mini vacation to Port Clinton, Ohio. On the 1 night we were guaranteed it would rain, my dad would spread the board out as I fought with my sisters on which piece we would be. I always wanted to be the car. Who wanted to be the stupid candlestick? The candlestick is so stupid. This isn’t CLUE here peoples.
2.5 hours after the game began, I was cashing in every property and white, 1 dollar bill I had to pay my Father the Boardwalk rent I owed. I had clearly copped an attitude and was a little bitch for the remainder of the night.
Fast forward 25 years and I began to play with my oldest. A few years later I taught my youngest. Both caught on easily yet every single time we played ended in a meltdown. I even have the oldest on video crying and screaming.
“But I never LOST! You don’t know what it feels like!” It’s the funniest thing.
Today I had a plan that was fail proof and resulted in more time with my sons and bonding between brothers.
“Boys, I have a proposition for you.” I announced as they slayed another pirate in Assassin’s Creed.
“At 3 I want to play you both as a team. If you guys win, I will buy you Shamrock Shakes. If you loose, you have to clean the junk drawer.”
Both of them were on board in minutes and I thought I had finally found a plan where it wouldn’t result in sending one or both to their rooms.
At first both of them were on fire. They both rolled one dice each and always seemed to get doubles. They were buying up properties left and right. They were making bogus deals with me that I was gun ho about, just so I could loose and they could win.
Then shit hit the fan. For once, things went my way by every stupid roll of the dice. Actually irony kicked in and I guess things didn’t go my way, which was to loose. Every f’ing turn I would skip their 3 properties laden with houses. I would always land on free parking and collect the dough.
In turn, the boys had the opposite luck. They landed on the “income tax” 3 times in a row where you have to pay 10% of their money or $200. They went to jail twice. They landed on my railroads twice in a row then landed on my property where they were to pay me $200 but I lied and said only $100. When I said “don’t worry about paying me,” P became the martyr and wouldn’t hear of it. C began to cry at every roll. They took turns earlier reading the chance and community chest cards. Now they were fighting over who’s turn it was.
I tried to explain to them that what they thought was a bad situation wasn’t bad at all. Despite me having $700, they had 4 houses per property which equated to a combined total of $600. Did I do the math right?
“Can we just quit now and clean the junk drawer?” C asked.
“No! I want you to keep playing!” I was determined to loose more than ever.
“What? You want us to keep playing so you can watch us loose more?” P asked in a snotty tone.
“Oh my God, no. I’m just saying things aren’t as bad as you think they are.”
Then of course they land on one of my properties that has a house and I miss their houses again.
“I’M DONE!” P announces in anger.
C walks over and begins to clean out the junk drawer.
“Don’t you dare clean out that junk drawer!” I said firmly. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to work! I was gonna’ get you guys shamrock shakes regardless!”
Meanwhile my husband is muttering under his breath, “I don’t even know why you try this game with them. It’s always a disaster.”
Thanks for your words of encouragement. I was so frustrated. I just went up to our bathroom and cried.
After I composed myself, I came back downstairs, got my jacket on and announced I was getting shamrock shakes. I think my boys felt bad by now because P said,
“You don’t have to get them if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’ll get them. Just know, I think we are going to wait a few more years till we play Monopoly again. It’s not worth the meltdowns.”
Surprisingly, neither protested. Ok, so lay it on me…..tell me how much you HATE Monopoly and how long it takes. I can take it, I’m a big girl….but if you ever want to play……
I love love love love LOVE monopoly! I even have Cat in the hat-opoly. Which is just as fun but with Dr. Seuss awesomeness. My friend has the avenger’s monopoly which might be better for your boys – it honestly takes an hour for 4 people to play, shorter if you have more players. It goes by easily and with less frustration and tears 😉 but then it’s not as fun! I’m a horrible person, don’t tell anyone!
Your not horrible, your human! We have Monopoly millionaire, some sort of electronic one and Monopoly Jr. Nothing compares to the original! I will look at Monopoly Dr. Seuss. I love Dr. Seuss.
I’ve played so many games of Monopoly … and when I played my friends growing up — we were ages 11-13, I ALWAYS won, so they never wanted to play Monopoly. One time one of my friend got so angry she flipped up the board and everything went everywhere. I had to clean it up because it was my game at my house. 🙁
I couldn’t find the candlestick when I went online to look at the pieces … did you mean the cannon, maybe? I liked being the iron or the thimble.
The candlestick must be for the 60th edition we have.
Oh, I did not know. And I agree with you, who would be the dumb candlestick?! 😉
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/151822918090?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_ref=http%253A%252F%252Frover.ebay.com%252Frover%252F1%252F711-117182-37290-0%252F2%253Fmtid%253D1588%2526kwid%253D1%2526crlp%253D53601919689_324272%2526itemid%253D151822918090%2526targetid%253D154774684329%2526rpc%253D0.02%2526rpc_upld_id%253D66030%2526device%253Dm%2526mpre%253Dhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.ebay.com%25252Fulk%25252Fitm%25252Flike%25252F151822918090%25253Flpid%25253D82%252526chn%25253Dps%2526adtype%253Dpla%2526googleloc%253D9014899%2526poi%253D9014946%2526campaignid%253D239125209%2526adgroupid%253D14978428809%2526rlsatarget%253Dpla-154774684329%2526gclid%253DCIfLrvfQz8sCFdcYgQodom4HQw%2526srcrot%253D711-117182-37290-0%2526rvr_id%253D1000689714939&ul_noapp=true
Thank you for that link! I have not seen that piece, nor will I ever choose that piece!
Hilarious! I totally played this game with my two older sisters as a kid. My bossiest sister was ALWAYS THE BANKER (in charge of my dollahhhh’s) and the game would go on for hours, but not before someone lost their cool (banker sister) and she would sweep both her hands across the board, resulting in a ruined game. A rite of passage that game!
My son said it best when he called it Rage Quitting. Idk if he invented that term, it probably came before him but regardless its perfect. Did your sister play banker to cheat? I know I did!
Rage Quitting ! I love that! My sister probably did cheat, but the banker position was more a ‘control’ thing. She’s a Gemini.
Ah, makes sense then. I raged quit on my dad all the time after I mortgaged every property and didn’t even have 1 white paper dollar bill…sigh….
Monopoly is not a game you should play with anyone you love. Or like.
Or want to see again.
Don’t play Monopoly. There are so many lovely games out there, and Monopoly is not one of them.
But I LLOOOOVVVVEEEE Monopoly! I don’t think I’ve ever played it with all adults. I wonder what that would be like? Fist fights? Perhaps.
I’ve played with adults.
We don’t speak anymore.
Love it!!
Oh my gosh! My kid LOVES to play Monopoly with my husband and I. But I am the one with the meltdowns! I read somewhere that the whole game was meant to illustrate the problems of the haves and the have-nots but instead of being social commentary it ended up being a “fun” family event. But then, my husband demands crazy prices to get a color set and I NEVER remember to collect my GO money–and I seem unnaturally attracted to Income Tax.
But I play anyway, and go to bed just a little bit mad. 🙂
Do you guys get the show Blackish over in the UK? If so, you have to check out the Monopoly episode. They have a “man-baby” tax where if Dre has a meltdown during the game, each player gets an actual $100 bill from him. And as for the original reason of Monopoly, I would believe it! We used to call Baltic the slums and anyone that bought Baltic was a slum lord.
I like in Minnesota. 🙂 I’ve watched the show a few times but never seen that episode. I’ll have to check it out.
Sad to say we call Baltic the same thing! Monopoly can be fun, I’d just like to win someday, maybe.
My husband ALWAYS won!!!
My dad always won and it always left me pissed off at the world. Now if I loose today, I just have an internal meltdown.
In our house it was Yahtzee. My husband will not play it. He had a personal best score and my then 4 year old daughter beat it. His meltdown resulted in him kicking the couch and bruising his big toe.
Nooo! He kicked the couch? Over Yahtzee? That is both hilarious and shocking to me!! LOL! OMG!
Yes, over Yahtzee. I think young children are super lucky when it comes to rolling dice. Too bad you can’t let them play at the craps table in Vegas. lol just joking. 😀
No, you’re right! We should set up a casino but only for children. Arlene, we could make millions! LOL!!!