What is Canadian Thanksgiving really about? Definitely, it is time for family, turkey,
leaves turning colour, and a chance to prove your prowess at some game with all
your family members. It is a time to
bond, argue, laugh, and pester. It all
sounds so wonderful.
In past years, we've played pool, street hockey, video
games, DVD board games and a variety of more traditional board games. My older sister prefers the aforementioned
DVD board games because she has good voice projection and can win the shout out
questions. I usually put in a decent
showing at this game, but pay the price with a wicked headache later. Traditional board games usually mean the
Canadian invented Trivial Pursuit. I
favour the 80's version, while my father favours the classic. I think this is because he has memorized all
the cards.
Yesterday (we celebrated early to accommodate family
schedules) we engaged in what came to be known as "Full Contact
Monopoly". We considered calling it
Texas Death Match Monopoly, but since wrestling has fallen off the family radar
in favour of MMA, it the name didn't really work.
The name might imply violence, but that isn't what
happened. There was no violence, very
little yelling, and due to the length of the game, no clear winner (though I
will contend that I was in the best position to win). Full Contact Monopoly is meant to convey the
complex house rules and multi-stage negotiations that took place. (And, just to clarify, though we did have a
copy of the official Monopoly rulebook, we pretty much through it out the
window--and were very aware of the fact that we were not playing by tournament
rules) To get the sense of it I need to
cite some examples:
- I negotiated to get 40% of the pot if one player landed on the free parking and captured the bonus pile of money.
- Several people negotiated free passes if landing on properties. They did not have to pay rent if they landed there before the owner improved the property to a hotel.
- One player negotiated the sale of all his properties to another player in exchange for 15% of all future revenue, provided that the receiver of the property paid all bills and fines for the first player--most people would let this person leave the game to tend the turkey, but of course we didn't. We made the second person continue to roll and pay bills for that person. Was that fair? Probably not, but neither was the first transaction.
- At one point, I proposed to exchange properties with another player and threw in a nickname change to sweeten the pot--he decided to keep the nickname and the deal fell through.
- On the verge of elimination, one player negotiated a loan in exchange for cooking dinner the next week.
My father said we weren't playing monopoly, but just
talking. I can't say that he was
wrong. In between mouthfuls of pumpkin pie, and turkey, and both foot ball and baseball games on TV, I think I only made it around the
board 6 times (maybe less) but managed to acquire 15 properties. I got to hang out with the family, and laugh
a whole lot. The game didn't get
finished, but does it really ever end?
