A gamey day

A few weeks ago Ryan and Brian, everyone’s favorite NYT crossword blog, had a discussion of favorite board games. I mentioned that when I was young, my favorite was Careers. It had essences of Monopoly (syn: monotonous), but unlike Monoply, it was actually fun and finite. I would prefer having my eyelashes plucked to playing Monopoly. Other blog readers agreed that it was a good game – complex enough to be fun, but easy enough to be social. This inspired me to ask the family shopper to order me one. She did, it came, and last evening I played it with Maria and Corinna, both great game enthusiasts. I recall that in my youth, I had this game all figured out, and I usually won. That was another of its charms. Last evening, I not only did not win, I lost so badly that my opponents were giving me Opportunity Cards to get me out of the hole, and forgave my debts when I was about to go bankrupt. I just kept landing on "Unemployment Office," or "Hospital," or "Shopping Spree," and never on the good squares, like the ones that say, "Collect $3000 Now!" It was ignominious. But it was lots of fun. The dinner was good, the wine super good, and the company fantastic! What more could one ask?