People can hear the yelling six houses down. It’s violent and ugly and causes pain and suffering. I grew up in the middle of the Braveheart-like struggle. Oh the horror, the guilt, the fake money.
Every family has its traditions. The Kennedys played touch football. Some people barbecue when they get together. Some go out to a favorite restaurant. Mine smears the place mats off the table onto the floor like a busboy wiping a filthy restaurant table and un-dices the most violent Monopoly game since people first dreaded landing on a hotel-packed Boardwalk. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Grab your britches, watch the banker, and get ready to jack somebody up on Atlantic Avenue.
Our make-up-the-rules-yell-and-scream-at-those-you-lovefest started long before my kids were born. Our family’s ancient and epic Monopolistic struggle started in the 1970s and is akin to the Hatfields and McCoys armed with metal board pieces and fake money. It is not uncommon for a participant to walk away from a game sporting little bruises on his face in the shape of red plastic houses and green little hotels. Going to Jail is a respite from the brutality; it’s the only place to catch your wind.
People talk to each other like red-headed stepchildren (sorry if you are one). After telling the worst lie you have ever heard another human utter, your dear old grandmother just might snatch up the whole piece of wanna-be real estate and Frisbee it upside your dear old grandpa’s head, trailing words she’d never use in Sunday School. Mild-mannered cousins will get all Linda Blair on you. Docile aunts slam the table over and over as if the pounding will make people believe they didn’t just land on Park Place for the third straight time. Vicious words are flung and vile diatribes splatter against walls and human targets. Your own children act like Saddam’s sons on vacation.
We fight about every move. We cheat about how many spaces we moved, who owes what, and why humans exist. We make nasty little side deals that will screw poor, senile Uncle Frank on his next roll of the dice. If we roll a double and land on someone else’s hotel, we snag and fling the dice again, faster than a Japanese steak house chef, in hopes that person will miss the opportunity to catch us. We cheat like poker night at Camp David (you name your favorite President, it doesn’t matter). The rules-be-damned-and-I’ll-buy-the-Reading-Railroad if these crazy people, loosely known as “my family,” haven’t made up a different set of rules for every single game for thirty freaking years.
I am ashamed, and yet I am in the middle of it, deeply considering biting off the ear of the family member next to me.
This capitalistic free-for-all plays out like Moscow after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There is cursing, sweating, gnashing of teeth, and so many lies you’d think Scooter Libby had moved into a garage apartment on Baltic Avenue. In light of what I’ve seen, The Sopranos were neutered bastions of sanity by comparison.
“I’ll trade you Tennessee Avenue for North Carolina if you –”
“Don’t even start that sh–”
“It’s not your turn, no deals, you–”
“Shut the f––”
“I’m so tired of this sh––”
“You two have been cheating since Jimmy Carter was in the White House and I’m–”
“You’re wha––”
“I’m gonna whip somebody’s a–”
“You ever had somebody shove an entire stack of those little orange Chance cards ––”
“Whoa, don’t be throwin’ that sharp little cannon at me you d ––”
No one finishes a sentence. The communication is straight out of that little reptilian part of your brain that screams, “Gimme! Gimmmme! Gimmmmmmeeeee!” You think Michael was cold when he had Fredo killed? In this twisted underworld nightmare, Luca Brasi doesn’t sleep with the fishes, he sleeps with you – and he is not happy.
What inspired this tragedy of trivial brinksmanship? Did Milton Bradley grow up with deranged prisoners to create such a game? You know he also invented the paper cutter. Uh huh. That’s what we use it for now. But back then, I can see his family using it to disarm their opponents vying for New York Avenue.
Whack! Now let’s see you buy that hotel before the ambulance gets here!
