Monopolizing the Game

This past Friday night we had game night in our pajamas.  The kids decided that we would be playing Monopoly despite my lack of enthusiasm for this choice.

I'm not a huge Monopoly fan; I can play the game about once every six months and be absolutely fine with that amount.  I don't mind the first part - buying the properties.  It's when you have to trade and wheel and deal that I think it gets so stressful.  I am not a real estate mogul; I have zero idea of what a "good deal" is.

This was Mike during much of the game.  He was going through the ads making a Christmas list for himself.  I kept telling him he was going to lose if he didn't pay attention.

We had to explain the idea of purchasing property and what the overall goal of the game was to the kids.  Jake thought he should save him money and didn't understand the concept of buying all the property you could at first.

This is where it started to get interesting.  Maddie landed on a railroad and bought it.  Then she landed on another and bought that.  Within two times around the board she had landed on all four railroads.  I knew things weren't looking pretty at that point.

After she landed on those four properties, we all started landing on them.

"You owe me $200!!"

"$200, please"

"You have to pay me $200!!"

Then she just stayed with "$200, please!".  By the third or fourth time of this statement, always said in the exact same tone and manner, Jake mimicked her as he handed over his cash.  He gave a dead-on impersonation, let me tell you.

There came a point where we were pulling all our cash reserves just to pay her.  Then she obtained all the light blue colors and was able to put up a motel on everything.  When she got her first "rent" payment...she was delirious.

Then there was Mike.  In the beginning he rounded the board and landed on Chance, Community Chest or the squares where he owed taxes.  By the time we all had 5-6 properties he had one.  It wasn't looking pretty for him.

The kids started offering to give him money to get through.  Jake especially started feeling really bad and was tossing money in Mike's piles.  Mike had mortgaged his properties to pay off Maddie and then he made her some offer that was in exchange for her railroads with what he had left.

Suddenly this game got serious.  Maddie was having a hard time agreeing to the trade; she loved her railroads.  However, her dad was in serious jeopardy of getting kicked out of the game.

We told her it was a game; she didn't have to agree to the trade.  Jake started announcing that he got dibs on dad's properties.  Mike yelled, "I'm not dead yet!"

Maddie was still struggling...

In the end she said, "I can't do it.  I just love my railroads."  So she kept them and proceeded to kick our patooties with those $200 debts every time we rounded a corner.

Maddie and Jake are itching to play the game again.  Tonight we learned a new dominoes game from my parents' friends.  Hopefully I can steer them towards that come Friday game night!