Hey - I'm Game !

I love board games.  

    Always have.  As a kid, I really loved them.  It seems like I spent a significant amount of time campaigning to get grown-ups to play games with me.  Whether adorable or irritating (kind of like me now) - I could often be seen carrying dice, a deck of cards, or one of various Milton-Bradley creations.  We never had the flashy games that I coveted.  TV commercials for MouseTrap, Tip-It, Mystery Date (don't get me started.  I always thought the Dream Date was kinda gay (even before I knew what kinda gay was) - and thought the "Dud" was hella fine) always left me with an indescribable longing for these more complex and exotic boxed pastimes.

     Oh, to build the wacky MouseTrap and make it fall on the unsuspecting colorful rodent and his tricky wedge of plastic Swiss.  Surely a heaven only enjoyed by the Only Child.  Youngest of 6 (a busy 15 years for The Breeders), I'm lucky they didn't tie a pork chop around my neck to get the dog to play with me... I was used to having what we needed, not necessarily what we wanted.  Spoiled ?  Sometimes.  Spoiled enough for MouseTrap ?  Dream on.

      Of all of my game-buddy hunting expeditions - a few stand out.  One was at an annual family heat-on when I was 7 or 8 years old.  We all used to gather on July 4th to ostensibly celebrate a grown-up's birthday.  Even at 8, with age-appropriate lack of understanding and vocabulary - I knew this was the day that everyone got shit-faced drunk.  Just one of many events that I interpreted as being rather ho-hum. (ed. note - this goes on for quite a number of years.  Go ahead - try and shock this kid.  Then, comes a day that you compare yourself to "other" families and are forced to redefine "normal".  Shit.)  

     One of my shining moments at this party was the almost...preternatural way I knew to duck down under the table as the fucked-up birthday asshole decided to "shoot the candles off of this motherfucking cake !".  I thought I had the best seat in the house : directly behind the cake - guaranteed to get to lick the frosting off the candles.  I was golden.  Except maybe for the gun pointed at me.  No thought, no real sense of alarm on my part. I saw the gun, the drunk waving it at me/the cake, and I very coolly slipped down under the table.  Plop.  Never even gave it a second thought.  What a goddamned ninja I was.  Frosting notwithstanding.

    People shouting, setting fires in the grass, vomiting, jumping off the roof and hoping to land in the swimming pool, using a handgun to hammer in a loose nail on the patio furniture, birds being shot at, old straight men drunkenly making out for keepsake photographs.  Add some BBQ and suntan lotion and you have what was The Fourth of July for me.  For decades.

   So, I remember that I looked so adorable that day - a smart red shorts set and a jaunty, like, Peter Pan-type hat adorned with a feather.   I was clearly steppin' out. (Don't shoot - I'm cute !).  Who could resist a request for a quick card game from such an adorable 

urchin ?    Nobody with a heart, surely.

      I went out to the patio that evening, drawn to the sound of toxically-inebriated relatives.  My blood line - whatta buncha guys.  Surely my mark could be found in this group of revelers.  I was good to go - they were ripe for the picking.  Wait until they saw how well I was learning to shuffle cards !   They would stand in awe.  No doubt.

     I wiggled my way through the seated adults and asked the closest guy how he felt about a quick game of War, Fish - I knew all the good card games.  Amused looks made a quick rotation around the table.  Maybe MORE people wanted to play !    "Well hey there, little lady !" my partner-to-be said.  (In retrospect, said in that smarmy, condescending way that some adults talk to kids - as if they aren't yet fully-formed and aren't worth serious consideration.  Dickhead.)  "Well, sure, honey - you just go find yourself a deck of cards and bring them to me."

     We were all in luck !  Unbeknownst to the adults, I had the foresight to have tucked a tiny deck of cards in my shirt pocket.  All the planets were surely aligned : we gon' play some cards !   Without missing a beat (comic timing : either you're born with it or you ain't - I come from a long line of cut-ups) - I magically produced the cards   No flies on me - not a one.  At that moment, there was no one as clever or prepared as I.  Sweet.

    There being a snag in every plan - my little cards weren't the only thing in my pocket that night.  What self-respecting kid doesn't have candy on their person at all times ?  Obviously rushed, I only carried a pocketful of loose Jujube nuggets.  As I, almost as if on cue, whipped out the mini-deck  - the candy stuck to them and flew everywhere.  I was mortified !  My moment ...ruined by a secret candy stash.  They'd never take me seriously now !  Shit !  Hilarity ensued...all the grown-ups were laughing at me !

   I turned beet red - as I figured them to be laughing at the Candy Flying/Card Incident.   Any street cred I might have had was shot to hell.  I remember looking around, crushed, feeling so embarrassed - like the joke was on me, somehow.  Not fair.  I was a kid.  Goddamned adults.  Drunken bastards.
      Time and distance being such...filters - I now know that they weren't laughing at my flying candy.  They were laughing at my precocious preparedness : my potential partner thought he could give me a virtual head-pat and send me on my way - searching for a deck of cards I'd never find.   Not so fast, buddy boy.  I came prepared, bitch : I'll shuffle , you cut.

     If memory serves, no cards were played that night.  After some fake fawning and cooing, I was dismissed.  Feather in my hat and all.  Cards back in my pocket, mouth full of sticky candies.

      My kingdom for a game of Go Fish.