by T-Bone
My daughter just graduated from high school, an event that brings family up from Alabama and, with their arrival, a knock-down-drag-out Monopoly game that rivals scenes from Braveheart.
Every family has its traditions. The Kennedys played touch football. Some people barbecue when they get together. Some go out to a favorite restaurant. Mine smears the place mats off the table onto the floor like a busboy wiping a filthy restaurant table and un-dices the most violent Monopoly game since people first dreaded landing on a hotel-packed Boardwalk. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Grab your britches, watch the banker and get ready to jack somebody up on Atlantic Avenue.
This make-up-the-rules-yell-and-scream-at-those-you-lovefest started long before my kids were born. Our family's ancient and epic Monopolistic struggle started in the 1970s and is akin to the Hatfields and McCoys armed with metal board pieces and fake money. It is not uncommon for a participant to walk away from a game sporting little bruises on his faces in the shape of red plastic houses and green little hotels. Going to Jail is a respite from the brutality; it's the only place to catch your wind.
People talk to each other like red-headed stepchildren (sorry if you are one). After telling the worst lie you have ever heard another human utter, your dear old grandmother just might snatch up the whole piece of wanna-be real estate and Frisbee it upside your dear old grandpa's head, trailing words she'd never use in Sunday School. Mild-mannered cousins will get all Linda Blair on you. Docile aunts slam the table over and over as if the pounding will make people believe they didn't just land on Park Place for the third straight time. Vicious words are flung and vile diatribes splatter against walls and human targets. Your own children act like Saddam's son's on vacation.
People fight about absolutely every move. They cheat about how many spaces they moved, who owes what, and why humans exist. They make nasty little side deals that will screw poor, senile Uncle Frank. If they roll a double and land on someone else's hotel, they snag and fling the dice again faster than a Japanese steak house chef in hopes that person will miss the opportunity to catch them. They cheat like poker night at Camp David (you name your favorite President, it doesn't matter). The rules-be-damned-and-I'll-buy-the-Reading-Railroad if these crazy people, loosely known as "my family," haven't made up a different set of rules for every single game for thrity freaking years.
I am ashamed ... and yet I am in the middle of it, deeply considering biting off the ear of the person next to me.
This capitalistic free-for-all plays out like Moscow after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There is cursing, sweating, gnashing of teeth and so many lies you'd think Scooter Libby had moved into a garage apartment on Baltic Avenue. In light of what I've seen, The Sopranos were neutered bastions of sanity by comparison.
"I'll trade you Tennessee Avenue for North Carolina if you --"
"Don't even start that cr--"
"It's not your turn, no deals, you--"
"Shut the he--"
"I'm so tired of this sh--"
"You two have been cheating since Jimmy Carter was in the White House and I'm--"
"You're wha--"
"I'm gonna whip somebody's a--"
"You ever had somebody shove an entire stack of those little orange Change car--"
"Whoa, don't be throwin that sharp little cannon at--"
No one finishes a sentence. The communication is straight out of that little reptilian part of your brain that screams, "Gimme! Gimmmme! Gimmmmmmeeeee!" You think Michael was cold when he had Fredo killed? In this twisted underworld nightmare, Luca Brasi doesn't sleep with the fishes, he sleeps with you.
Squeezed between episodes of this 30-year battle are family events like Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, Easter, birthdays and my daughter's graduation this past weekend. As I watched her accept her high school diploma, the last 18 years of my sweet little girl's innocent life flashed before my eyes--and it hit me like a board filled with hotels that we'd raised her to stand toe-to-toe with Donald Trump and treat him like Rosie O'Donnell.
That sounds absolutely wonderful! A family tradition that is REAL and emotional and involves everyone whole heartedly instead of just grinning and bearing(?) it. I love it.
Posted by: wendi | July 04, 2007 at 03:58 PM
That sounds absolutely wonderful! A family tradition that is REAL and emotional and involves everyone whole heartedly instead of just grinning and bearing(?) it. I love it.
Posted by: wendi | July 04, 2007 at 03:58 PM
That sounds absolutely wonderful! A family tradition that is REAL and emotional and involves everyone whole heartedly instead of just grinning and bearing(?) it. I love it.
Posted by: wendi | July 04, 2007 at 03:58 PM
I haven't played a game of monopoly with my husband for over twenty years. Until now I thought his cut-throat approach could be blamed on being raised some place I considered wayyyy down south in Georgia & thus still feeling the sting of northern aggression.
Come to find out it might just mean he's somehow related to you!
Posted by: Susan Reynolds | July 12, 2007 at 10:03 PM
I haven't played a game of monopoly with my husband for over twenty years. Until now I thought his cut-throat approach could be blamed on being raised some place I considered wayyyy down south in Georgia & thus still feeling the sting of northern aggression.
Come to find out it might just mean he's somehow related to you!
Posted by: Susan Reynolds | July 12, 2007 at 10:03 PM
Posted by: t-bone | July 14, 2007 at 01:47 PM
T-Bone,
Based on your detailed description, I think we may be related.
Posted by: Steve Roesler | July 23, 2007 at 01:23 PM
Sounds like a blast! Happy graduation to your daughter.
Posted by: Karen Putz | January 11, 2008 at 07:53 AM