So tonight I feel it is my duty to start off this entry with a disclaimer:
To my great horror, it has come to my attention that in a recent issue of Maxim there was a rather asinine letter defending Sex and the City signed by a "Mary G of NYC." I have not seen this letter, but from my understanding of it, it could have been written by a five year old.
Still, how many Mary G's of NYC can there be out there...20, 50, 100? In any case, this was not me, people. Though I love my four girls, I fully understand that the show is not for everyone, and even that, at times, the show was not all that realistic (GASP! I can't believe I just said that)...ie, examples including Carrie's ginormous apartment only cost her $750 a month, and that after years of beating around the bush with Carrie, Big finally came around (do I think this would have happened in real life? Sadly, no.) Thus, I love the show, but I respect others rights to hate it. And also that it is highly unlikely that were I to take the time to write into a magazine, I would defend it so poorly. It is also highly unlikely that were I to write into a magazine, I would choose Maxim (ba-ZING). Chris Calamera, if this is your idea of a sick joke on me, well, Boy, you're going DOWN.
Phew! Now that that's out of the way, on to the matter at hand. My apartment is an evolutionary work in progress. Little by little, I've been adding things to it. One of the things I added to it soon after the initial move-in was some of my favorite board games. In my entertainment unit, on the shelf below the DVD/VCR, I have three of my all-time favorites: Monopoly, Scrabble, and Taboo. This trifecta sits, ever patient, waiting to be unleashed for instant good times with the revered guests who cross the threshold of #2R. Lookin' at them recently, however, I had a revelation about what they represent...and there you have it, another Blog is born.
Recently I wrote about young love, stating that it was pure, because it occurred at a time in our lives when we hadn't learned to play games yet. (You'll notice that the blog I'm referencing is no longer, and thus we have the first instance in my blogging life in which I've censored myself. Ack! I feel like a sell out!!) Anyway, sitting cross-legged on my couch, staring at my Parker-Brothers\Milton Bradley trifecta, a light-bulb went off. Are we sensing that it's time for a Mary Metaphor here....oh, oh..I think it's time for a Mary Metaphor!!!
At age thirteen we hadn't learned to play relationship games yet, but we'd definitely been learning to play some type of games. Taking a mental snapshot of the games of my youth, I discovered a startling connection to the games we played with our mommies and daddies (and in some cases, stuffed animals, only child...remember?) and the games we play in our love lives. Are you ready? Here we go...
CANDYLAND:
Touted as a "child's first game" and it certainly was mine. You draw cards with colors on them and advanced forward. The ultimate goal is to make it to the finish... where there is like a candy kingdom or something. The loop hole is the picture cards, which correspond with places all around the board. If you draw a picture card, you have to go to the corresponding place, whether it be close to the finish, or back at the beginning. You draw the Gumdrop Guy, you have to go back to the beginning, but the Sugar Plum Fairy is practically at the finish. You draw her, and you're GOLDEN. The Gumdrop Guy is short, chubby (he's a gumdrop, so duh) and wears glasses, the Sugar Plum Fairy is statuesque, glittery, and an all-around fox. She represents the goal here, people, she represents the goal!!
CHUTES AND LADDERS:
You make all this effort to climb up a ladder and advance on the board, but with one spin of the wheel, you go sliding ass-first down farther than where you started from. Chutes and Ladders teaches us to deal with the curve balls that life throws, in dating or otherwise.
SCRABBLE:
DUH. You're given random letters and you have to take them and try and make them fit together with one to three other players' letters. You take randomness, and try to scramble it into something that makes sense. Although, in scrabble, points for intelligence counts...whereas in dating, I'm starting to wonder.....
TABOO:
Along the same lines of Scrabble, here we have another word game. Except this time you struggle to make your partner blurt out a word without using five obvious synonyms that will give the word away immediately. In Taboo, points count for how well you can communicate with the other person. If you are able to say "You know, that thing..." and the other person blurts out "OCTOPUS!" and gets it right, well, then you might just have a strong relationship there. Taboo also calls to my mind the things we ladies go through to try and get the guys in our lives to say the things we've been longing to hear, without holding them at gunpoint. How many synonyms are there for "commitment." Unlike in dating, Taboo has a timer and if the person still can't come up with your word, that's it. Hmmm, maybe we should start thinking like Taboo, we'd waste a lot less time.
MONOPOLY:
It's all about money and real estate. Also, there's a beauty contest.
BATTLESHIP:
You find each other's vulnerable places and then move in for the kill!
OUIGA BOARD:
This is really too easy. You gather all your girls together and ask this board questions that have answers that only fate holds. Done correctly, the board can actually yield pretty freaky answers. When I was young, I had a Ouiga board that even spoke more than one language. Apparently Spanish Ouiga boards do exist. Mine had "si" and "no" in the upper corners. Eesh, anyway the dating equivalent of Ouiga is psychics. I'll admit that I've been to a psychic once or twice, and like the Ouiga, a good psychic can also yield pretty freaky answers ("how the heck did you know about HIM?!") Both Ouiga and psychics are what we turn to when we're looking for answers that we are impatient to uncover.
So there we have it. The board games of our youth served a two-fold purpose. One purpose was to spend quality time with our parents/siblings/stuffed animals, and the other was to warn us about the road which lay ahead, containing a variety of different games that we would later have to master. It's comforting to know, however, that for the time being I can return to the games of my youth, presently housed on a shelf directly across from where I'm currently sitting, to take a short journey back to simpler times.
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2 comments:
Great post Mary. In Soc 100, we used to talk about toys we played with as children as part of our socialization. I loved the Monopoly example. I would point out that Monopoly teaches us all, at a young age, that accumulating wealth and property, at any cost, was the key to success. Its the primer to being good capitalists. I would often ask my students if they thought Monopoly would do well in other cultures. My students often made many assumptions about me after various Soc 100 classes, this class spurred the "Carolyn is a Communist" assumption. Little do they know, I am damn good at Monopoly :). Risk is another good example of this type of socialization. What do we have to say about "Girl Talk"? I guess that's for another post.
Let it be known that I have recently played Taboo at Mary J's pad and it was a rip roaring time. I blatantly called out Mary J on using such terms as "this sport rhymes with masketball!" Chris and I did kick some butt!
Another great game in life is Yahtzee...it's pretty hard to get five dice of the same number...but it's something to strive for. Along the way, you'll settle for a good four of a kind or a full house, but there is nothing better than the feeling of getting a Yahtzee. And if you have faith, hope and courage (with a little luck on your side of course), you too can one day achieve a Yahtzee in your life!
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