Tag Archives: Monopoly

Has Murphy Visited Your House?

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“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

This maxim originated in 1949 with Air Force Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr., who ran a bungled aerospace experiment. Perhaps his holiday gathering didn’t resemble a Hallmark movie’s, either.

Few do. Anyone celebrating Christmas wrestles with Murphy’s Law.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.
  • If you’ve decorated, young children/grandchildren will un-decorate.
  • If you hide medicines from them, you’ll have hidden them even better from yourself.
  • If you’ve moved plants and breakables to your bedroom, they’ll remain safe — until you and your spouse rise for nocturnal bathroom visits.
  • If light strings work, five minutes later, they’ll short-circuit your entire block’s electrical grid. Repairmen will come “after the holidays.”

Murphy’s Law also wreaks havoc with holiday feasts. Along with meeting fat-free, gluten-free, vegetarian and pescatarian (fish only) requirements as well as free-range partridges that have roosted in pear trees, hosts face numerous other challenges.

Image by Oscar Portan from Pixabay.
  • If everyone shares dinner responsibilities, COVID-19, flu, road construction, blizzards and/or meteorite showers will necessitate a host’s wild dash for a turkey that can thaw and cook in 15 minutes.
  • If you make real giblet gravy, older diners recall Grandma’s tasted better. Younger ones request gravy-in-a-jar.
  • If you overload grandchildren with sugar, parents will disappear for a week.

Then, there is the weather.

  • If half your family votes for snowmen, and the other half for clear roads, you’ll receive a compromise politely called wintry mix. Less politely: slop.
  • If eight grandsons visit, it will slop all day. Every day.
Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.

Murphy’s Law loves to tinker with generational differences.

Image by mpmd2009 from Pixabay.
  • If the eight grandsons play Monopoly, keep ice bags handy.
  • If you own five identical, yellow toy cars from Cheerios® boxes, all your future NASCAR drivers will claim the same one.
  • Mary, Jesus’ mother, might have welcomed a little drummer boy, but most moms of infants — and cranky, old adults — don’t.
  • Though … if grandparents turn up “Jeopardy!” volume to seismic levels, they still insist children are too loud.
  • If no one brings up politics or COVID, the don’t let-your-kids-tell-my-kids-there-isn’t-a-Santa discussion keeps communication flowing.

With Murphy’s Law on the loose, grinches could present an excellent case to ban holiday get-togethers.

But grinches don’t understand that Family Law trumps Murphy’s. It declares love is worth risks. Worth gravy, Santa and Cheerios® car clashes. Worth learning to pronounce “pescatarian.”

After Christmas 2020, who would have it any other way?

We celebrated a merry, outdoors Christmas, but we’re glad we can hug this year!

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How does Murphy’s Law affect your Christmas?

Who Wore Out Whom?

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Our grandson plays with light and various shapes at the Muncie Children’s Museum.

When I last experienced grandchild deprivation, I suffered symptoms involving credit cards and Easter outfits for everyone through 2029. So, Grandpa cheered our scheduled grandkid time.

The six- and eight-year-olds slept in, and so did we. Whatever Mom fed them, I wished I’d had it when she was a kid.

Grandpa played Monopoly with the older boy, a self-confessed math genius. I listened to piano “concerts” by Little Brother, a grandma-confessed musical genius. Grandpa, who mortgaged all his deeds, defeated the fiscally responsible eight-year-old.

Later, Hubby asked me, “Am I a bad grandpa for beating my grandson?”

Hanging out in the kid-size ant colony at the Muncie Children’s Museum.

“Absolutely.” I crossed my arms. “Plus, think of the lesson you taught: go into debt, and you’ll win.”

“Just teaching him the American way.”

Before Grandpa taught more patriotic principles, I suggested we visit a nearby children’s museum.

Our grandsons climbed and slithered through the museum’s kid-size “ant maze.”

“This will wear them out,” I said smugly.

Grandpa high-fived me. We decided to put the museum in our will.

The elder grandson chose me, an obvious pushover, to supervise his further exploration. The younger tugged Hubby to a huge semi.

Hubby and grandson check out The Big Rig and more at the Muncie Children’s Museum.

He perched behind the steering wheel. “When I grow up, I wanta drive a truck like this!”

I fled the vision of him loose on the interstate. The eight-year-old and I played games with giant checkers. (Grandma proved the loser he’d hoped for.) We banged on pipes, triangles, and tambourines at the music-making exhibit. I offered to dance to his newest composition, but he nixed that idea.

The Ant Wall in the Muncie Children’s Museum allows children to experience the maze of an ant colony.

Instead, I sat while he investigated the miniature grocery store. I nearly dozed off — until I saw him wiggling a fake salami through the window of a play schoolhouse where an earnest little teacher was holding class.

I proposed, “Want to return to the ant maze?”

“Yeah!” He zipped to the top. “Come in, Grandma!”

“I’d get stuck. The Jaws of Life would have to cut me out.”

“Awesome!”

Thankfully, his brother interrupted, my panting hubby behind him. “Whoever coined the word ‘babysit’?” he complained.

In the maze, the hunter and hunted clashed about who should be dead.

I diverted their attention to a cage containing an enormous, fake reptile: “Doesn’t he look real?”

Image by M. Maggs from Pixabay.

The boys pressed noses against the glass.

The “fake” snake raised its head.

I fainted dead away.

I awoke to “Cool, Grandma. Do it again!”

Hubby hauled me up. “Grandpa’s back can’t take it.”

Riding home, our grandsons’ subdued state confirmed that baths, a storybook and prayer would usher them to Dreamland. Instead, they exploded from the car like twin firecrackers.

Would we survive the night? Or the next day, when the next batch of grandkids arrived?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Who wears out whom at your house?

Confessions of a Really Bad Sport

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Are you a good sport?

I’m not. Never have been.

As a preschooler, I pitched horrendous hissy fits when I pinned the tail on the donkey’s nose.

Worse, I adopted questionable ways of winning. I recall playing jacks at age four with Meddy, a “big kid” of five. When Meddy dropped a jack or misbounced the ball, I loudly denounced her “misses.” My similar miscues, however, were “mistakes.” People who made mistakes deserved another chance. Several, in fact.

Meddy suggested a new game: Throw Rachael Off the Top of the Swing Set. She was good at that game. I wasn’t the best sport.

I graduated to towering rages while playing Monopoly — not my fault. My brother manufactured counterfeit five-hundred-dollar bills under his bunk bed. He spent every penny building vast empires around Park Place and Boardwalk. When his cash flow disappeared, I bought his lousy railroads and utilities with carefully hoarded cash. In turn, I believed he’d ignore my landing on his hotels.

Wrong. He nailed me. I, the prudent, generous developer, always lost.

Since his counterfeiting skills didn’t figure into playing Clue, I fared better. Still, I rejected the candlestick as a weapon. What respectable murderer knocked off people with candlesticks?

After ten losses in an afternoon, I smacked both my brother and my cousin with the playing board. Hey, it made more sense than using a candlestick.

I even extended my winning obsession to church. Boy vs. girl penny contests at Bible school inspired me. I emptied my piggy bank, dug under sofa cushions, and shook down neighbor kids so we angelic girls could beat those devilish boys to send money to missionaries. Somehow, I confused the bring-a-visitor-to-church competitions with TV cowboy westerns. We kids even sang songs urging us to “bring them in.” How was I to know “dead or alive” didn’t apply?

Eventually, I grew up. Fair play, teeth-gritting congratulations to those who bested me, and missionary giving sans mugging all became the norm.

Recently, I played Scrabble with our grown children. As I was an English major, this self-designed scenario should have resulted in another victory notch in my diploma.

But all the vowels had been called to jury duty. During game two, all consonants were outsourced overseas. I proposed new rules: If other players used an X, they lost five tiles. If I drew a Z, though, I received five bonus tiles.

My narrow-minded offspring nixed my innovations. Their proposal: If I drew a Q, all U’s found among my tiles were to be held in custody until 3012 or until peace prevails in the Middle East, whichever comes first.

Maybe we both just made mistakes?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a good sport?