Monopoly: A Childhood Game

Monopoly by Mike_fleming, on Flickr

I am the youngest of four children and I learned very early that my brothers and sister are very competitive when it comes to games and sports.

During my childhood, I understood that if they could find a way to win, they would. Many of our games of Monopoly usually went against the given rules, and if we could be competitively underhanded, we would be! Often the game started with an argument about who was going to be the banker and what game pieces we would each use.

From there, spats usually ensued about the correct number of moves that should be made (as we tried to hop over our opponent's properties). In fact, my brothers were so sly that they used to try and hide their money by placing it under the board, or in stacks of mixed denominations. Claiming properties that were not our own was another good ploy, as was trying to quickly roll the dice before anyone noticed that one of us had landed on someone else's property. If things got really competitive, it was not unusual for the game board and pieces to fly across the room!

Of course, all this happened when our Mom was not around. Often, she took on the role of banker and tried some tricks of her own that usually went unnoticed by one or more of us. Games used to last for hours, sometimes late into the evening. It was a game that certainly kept us occupied, and made us forget about the freezing temperatures outside for a while.

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