When I was about six years old, I remember my normally sweet-tempered dad getting all bent out of shape.
We were playing Old Maid and I was winning.
He was working on his PhD in engineering at the time and I think it perturbed him greatly that despite all his life experience, knowledge of standard deviation and parabolas (or whatever) and genetic predisposition (his mom–my grandma–was kind of a game genius), he couldn’t beat his eldest child at a simple, children’s game of cards.
Or possibly, it was the way his six-year old triumphantly cackled and danced around when he was stuck with the Old Maid (I’m sure I was just pleased to be making up for the indignities of a patriarchal society that thought that the punishment in a card game should be called something so awful, so tragic, so open to mockery as a SINGLE WOMAN OVER A CERTAIN AGE.)
This was before Bridget Jones, dontcha know and okay, so I might be having some slightly retro-active indignity not actually experienced at the age of six.
Anyway, sexist game name and premise aside, there’s another reason that I rarely play games these days. It’s because even though I am a delight 98% of the time, it turns out that when it comes to games, I am like my father. Since neither my father nor I appear to have inherited his mother’s game genius gene, we do, like most humans, tend to lose sometimes. A situation that leads quickly to the confirmed evidence that we are what you call Very Sore Losers.
I hope no one writes that on my tombstone.
And, I have become quite familiar with this darker side of my personality because when Practical Man and I have played Poker on holidays or Cribbage when we are camping in the Boler, he wins EVERY TIME.
And, not to put too fine a point on it, but actually “wins” is too mild a word. “TROUNCE” is more like it or maybe “WALLOP”. I sort of get it when it’s Poker (even though I’ve played since I was a pre-teen) or Cribbage in the Boler (because, how can I concentrate when I’m hanging out in the Boler that I l-o-o-ve?) but, I have the role of public wordsmith in our family. How come he always, always beats me in Scrabble and Upwords?
It’s annoying, I’m sure you can understand.
All this losing and blah, blah, blah.
So, then I act all mature and refuse to play.
But, since it’s the festive season and in our family, that is a time for games, I suggested to Practical Man that we have a couple of friendly games of crokinole on Christmas Eve.
Y’know, just for fun.
(In the interests of full disclosure, my mother’s side of the family are crokinol-ers from way back.)
Practical Man asked me for the rules, all innocent-like and then proceeded to TROUNCE and WALLOP me in game one, despite my God-given genetic pre-disposition to crokinole greatness. So, we started on game two of the best of three and suddenly, inexplicably, it seemed as if I actually stood a chance at winning.
It was practically a Christmas Miracle!
Even better, Practical Man had the unfortunate luck to hit the crokinole checker directly into one of the pegs on the board, four turns in a row. If you haven’t experienced this, let me just emphasize that when the checker hits one of the pegs on the board, it bounces back at you in a fairly humiliating sort of way.
Mwah, ha, ha!
On the fourth time, so giddy was I about the prospect of winning a game that I succumbed to a fit of giggles which quickly turned into “can’t stop laughing” followed by “falling off chair laughing” which is the universal sign in my house for “she’s about to faint“.
And so ended my magnificent path to crokinole glory. I had to spend the rest of the evening on the couch with my feet in the air, trying to get my nervous system to calm down and the blood flowing consistently back to my brain.
Nervous system: I know I’ve told you this before, but, you are seriously high maintenance.
And by the way, I WAS WINNING!
My great grandparents’ crokinole board from the farm in Grey-Bruce County lives with my uncle Gruff and his family. The original wooden board was always super polished and smooth or as my dad would say:
SmooooTH (rhymes with “tooth”).
(When he’s not being A Sore Loser, my father tweaks language in delightful ways like this.)
You could see your face in that crokinole board.
Having been thwarted at winning once this week already, I decided to press my luck at the Boxing Day festivities at my parents house.
Before I knew it, I was sitting down to a friendly game of crokinole with my two cousins and Practical Man.
I was pretty sure that with me and my two cousins SURELY all having at least a pinch of the family crokinole gene, I was definitely on a winning team.
Game one went like this:
- Practical Man and my cousin (team one) scored 80 points (we were playing to 100) in round one.
- Me and my other cousin (team two) scored 10 points in round two.
- Practical Man and my cousin (aka crokinole shark) took the game in round three.
Ladies and gentlemen: I give you possibly the world’s shortest crokinole game.
Cue my Sore Loser face.
My uncle Gruff’s daughter number two subbed as Practical Man’s new partner. Gruff’s first daughter and I decided that we were not “Losers” but rather “Points Deficient” (also – we were fond of the fact that PD is much harder for the enemy team to sign on their foreheads than L). Being only Points Deficient and not Losers, we talked the talk. We were “working a strategy” for the best of three games.
Then, she confessed that she had drunk more wine than she thought.
So, I did my best to distract the enemy team by blurting out random diversions like “German slippers” and this helped me and my cousin (aka tipsy teammate) slide to a tenuous victory in game two.
I was on a winning team! Well, at least a tied-for-winning team.
Then, it was game three. Turns out that Gruff’s daughter number two alternated between being a crokinole savant and being the Julia Child of crokinole (that is, highly entertaining while simultaneously klutzy). Her partner, Practical Man, used some of his more aggressive manoeuvers to fling checkers off the board and on the carpet but, he was often successful at clearing the board of our checkers. My partner and I patiently gathered points, clawing our way, step-by-step ever closer to the magical 100.
It took a while.
There was a round with only 5 points scored.
There was a round with ZERO points scored.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I give you possibly the world’s longest crokinole game.
And then…
Cue my Sore Loser face.
The darn posts on the board: they leap out at your checkers, not to mention, we are highly suspicious that they may be magnetic.
My grandpa and my uncles could all do some kind of Jedi-voodo-crokinole magic and bounce their checker off pegs, knock about three of the opposing checkers off the board and land snugly in the hole that is worth 20 points.
Sure, sure.
I’d like to see them beat me at Old Maid.
Copyright Christine Fader, 2015. Did you enjoy this post from A Vintage Life? Share on Facebook Tweet
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