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June 20, 2005

Good Clean Fun

What has happened to our society? When did entertaining our children suddenly require violence? Is there no such thing as good clean fun anymore? We’ve all heard the statistics, and I’m sure been equally disturbed:

The average ten year old has witnessed over 8,000 murders.

Children’s television shows depict over twenty violent acts per hour.

Teenagers who play violent video games are ten times more likely than their peers to get into physical fights with other students

Violence in television, movies, and video games is desensitizing our children to the pain and suffering of others.

So I truly applauded my friend Seamus when, a few weeks ago, he decided to host a good old fashioned game night. What better way to protest this continuing trend toward violent game play than by reviving the lost art of parlor games?

The invitation said to bring nothing but a healthy sense of competition and our youthful exuberance. I brought a six-pack of Red Stripe, just in case.

When I arrived, the party was already well underway, with a large group of partygoers stationed in the living room playing Seamus’ new movie trivia game. Another group had broken off and set up camp in the kitchen to play Cranium. The four remaining guests who were not already mid-game – Natasha, Farnsworth, Lazlo, and I – laid claim to the dining room table and started to dig through Seamus’ game cabinet.

The selection was a little scarcer than I had anticipated: Boggle, Trivial Pursuit, Simpson’s Trivial Pursuit, Simpson’s Pictionary, Simpson’s Connect Four, and Monopoly (Anniversary Edition). Having had an unfortunate experience playing Simpson’s Pictionary at another friend’s party last year, Nat and I opted for the classic game of achieving the American dream through real estate development – Monopoly.

It started out like all games of Monopoly – friendly debate over who gets to be the banker, wishful conversations of what we would do if we someday got both Park Place and Boardwalk, and a political discussion over the legality and ethics of the Get out of Jail Free card.

Natasha was selected banker because of her general trustworthiness and close proximity to the cash box. We established the unwritten rules to which we would adhere (i.e. all fines go into the Free Parking pool, three doubles in a row pays a penalty of $100, etc.). After many trips around the board, several paydays after passing Go, and much internal conflict over whether or not to purchase the B&O Railroad, most of the properties had been purchased and, as I soon discovered, the real game began.

And that’s also when my idyllic view of the parlor gaming of yore rapidly became tarnished. I discovered I was no longer walking on the sunny side of the street, for the real estate tycoons at this table suddenly shed their human skins to reveal spines and scales and serpentine tongues. It had been so many years since I last played Monopoly that I had forgotten what it truly stood for: oppression, segregation, manipulation, and corporate greed.

Perhaps it was because my rose-colored glasses were obstructing my view, but somehow I failed to notice that early in the game, Farnsworth and Lazlo had already begun to pen top-secret real estate deals.

“Lazlo – if you get Reading Railroad, I’ll trade you the Electric Company. But I’ll only charge you half the normal rate if you land on a railroad.”

“Farnsworth – if you get Illinois Avenue, sell it to me for cost plus $100, and I’ll only make you pay rent on the other two red ones.”

Natasha and I innocently stacked our money in neat little piles, and sipped Jamaican beer, when all the while there was a hostile takeover brewing in the seats next to us. After reaching near bankruptcy, and realizing that we were playing Monopoly with Michael Douglas from Wall Street and his lawyer, Natasha stepped in.

“Jenny – can you please meet with me briefly in the kitchen?”

I quickly counted my money and properties, gave Farnsworth and Lazlo the stink eye, and slipped into the kitchen to confer with Natasha.

“Jen – clearly you see what’s going on, don’t you? Now they’ve made this personal. Apparently it’s boys against girls, and I’m not going down like this. I say we form a merger.”

I looked back into the dining room to see Farnsworth counting his massive wad of money and twirling his mustachio, so I leaned in a bit closer to Nat, and said, “I’m listening.”

“We women business owners need to stick together. I say we pool our money and act as a limited liability partnership. We’ll focus on taking one of them down first, and then go in for the final kill.”

While I had really hoped that Seamus’ game night would be filled with gentle conversation and good sportsmanship, I now knew better.

“Okay, Nat. I’m in. They drew first blood.”

She nodded and whispered softly, “They drew first blood.”

We shook hands on the deal, and sauntered back into the dining room with high hopes and dreams of taking our woman owned, woman operated corporation right to the top. Finally, we would make the Forbes “Forty Under Forty” list. Armed with our optimism and entrepreneurial spirit, we felt we could accomplish anything.

Unfortunately, I had made some bad deals as a greenhorn, early on in my real estate career. In exchange for Atlantic Avenue, giving me a monopoly on the coveted yellows, I had to agree to give Farnsworth free rent. Now this meant that the only person I could collect rent from was Lazlo. And in exchange for a short-term, interest-free loan from Lazlo to pay off my Boardwalk debt to Farnsworth, I had to give him free rent on the greens, plus a 10% cut in any future rents I received there. Natasha had only acquired the purples, otherwise known as the Roach Motels – Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues. She did have the utilities, though, so we hoped for the best.

It soon became clear that our best wasn’t good enough.

Time and time again, we landed on the railroads, and Park Place, and Indiana Avenue, shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars to our rivals. Not even my landing on Free Parking three times in a row could dig us out of the debt we were in.

When they saw we were at our weakest, the Trump brothers went in for the kill. The final straw was when I landed on Boardwalk for the second time.

Farnsworth grinned and said, “That’ll be $800, please. Thank you for being a frequent guest at the Boardwalk Inn. Please don’t steal the towels.”

I was $400 short, and Natasha didn’t have a dime left to her name, so Lazlo stepped in. He tossed me a $100 bill and said, “Here you go. Consider it a gift. It’s the smallest bill I’ve got, so you can keep the change.”

I just lost it.

I felt my ears start to burn as I looked over at my business partner and said, “Nat. Did he just do what I think he did?”

She sucked her teeth and said, “Oh, he did, all right. He did exactly what you think.”

I grabbed the offending $100 bill, tore it into shreds and threw it at Lazlo’s face. “Here’s what I think of your $100! You think I need your handouts? Listen – I will walk the streets as a strung out crack whore trolling for Johns before I accept charity from either of you two!”

Natasha nodded in agreement. “Mmm hmm. She will, you know. You’ll be all, ‘Who’s that junkie hooker in the halter top and satin hot pants hanging outside of Baltic Avenue?’ And I’ll be all, ‘Oh, that’s Jenny. She used to be somebody. She used to own this place. And now she just waits for the thimble to pass Go with that $200 in his pocket.’ So don’t even try to offer her that measly $100. She will cut you.”

Farnsworth jumped in, “All right, all right, Jentasha Corp. Calm down. Look – we can still cut a deal here. You owe me $400, so give me all three light blues and we’ll call it a day.”

I pushed my chair back from the table, stood up, and yelled, “I’d sooner slit my wrists than let you destroy the dreams my family built! You just want to tear them down and build high-rises, don’t you! My great-grandparents didn’t live off of rats and orange rinds on the boat ride from Sicily to Ellis Island just so I could hand over their legacy to a greedy slumlord like you! Natasha, call the bank – I’M MORTGAGING IT ALL!”

“Jen, we’re in this together. Jentasha Corp is dissolving, as of this moment!”

After selling all our houses and mortgaging all our remaining properties, we were able to scrape together the final $400 I owed Snidely Whiplash, and the game came to an abrupt and welcome halt. My recollections of wholesome, innocent game play now shattered, I finished the last of my Red Stripe beer, packed up my backpack, and thanked Seamus for a lovely evening.

I now understand that the human memory is selective for a reason. We whitewash the past as a form of survival. It is important for us to be able to believe that there was a time when things were better than they are now. To convince ourselves that we haven’t changed, but the world we live in has.

I now know better.

Next weekend, I’m going to see if I can round up a couple of teenagers to teach me how to play the new Grand Theft Auto. I hear it now has 50% more entrails.

Posted by runjenrun at June 20, 2005 06:10 AM

Comments

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