Intentionally Tanking a Game of Sorry!

Take for example, one time last year when she challenged me to a game of UNO. She slanted the rules in her favor so much, it wasn't even funny. But because I am the equivalent of a Hall of Famer in Uno, I still beat her. Big mistake. She kept calling for rematches until she could win one game. When she finally beat me, she went around bragging about how she'd beat me, blatantly disregarding the six times I'd won previously. I don't care if you are 8, that's not cool.

So this year I figured its much easier to just lose. If I could throw two games and lose, I wouldn't have to play anymore. So I set out to do just that.

Unfortunately, I am awesome at Sorry! too, and I was going to win the first game. Three of my pawns were already in the home base, and my fourth and final pawn was in the Safe Zone. Two of her pawns were home, with two more coming around the board. I drew an 11 -- which means you can either move 11 spaces or swap places with an opponent. I swapped places, moving out of the safe zone and certain victory to push her pawn further from home. Bad strategy no matter what age you are. But I explained my logic and played it off as bravado -- that I'm so much better than you that I can do this, and still beat you. Knowing full well that it would probably cost me the game. But then, that was the whole point.

Sure enough, her next card was a Sorry! card. My pawn dude was back to start. I would lose momentarily. Talk about your all-time tank jobs.

The next game I decided not to make it so close. I would purposely mis-count moves, going 10 instead of 11, etc. I would make counter-intuitive strategic calculations. I would lose.

Having dropped 2 straight games, I was no longer a challenger and could go back to watching movies on TBS with commercial interruptions when the same movies were in a box somewhere, on DVD, in better quality and no commercials. But that would mean unpacking boxes, and that's work.

Tommy Boy is a really funny movie incidentally. Even on TBS.

We smoked ribs and roast beef in a meat smoker all day, and enjoyed a fine feast with many beers that night.

--

Sunday, my brother's wife's family came over for a tour of my house. After working so hard to get theirs painted and looking cool, they were curious what I had done, since I'm more crazy and take more chances design-wise. This was cool, sort of.

The little sister made a beeline for my office room, as if instinctively knowing there would be things to play with in there. She saw a box with "iPod 40GB" written on it, and wanted to know where my iPod was, and could she see it. Sure, whatever. Its over there.

After a couple minutes of clicking around -- the genius of the iPod, even a 9-year old can figure out how to use it immediately -- she declared quite authoritatively that there was nothing on it.

What do you mean, there's 8000 (EIGHT THOUSAND) songs on there!

I got put in my place real quick. With a steely glare that only a child can deliver with such sharp effect, she announced "What I MEANT was that there's nothing good on here. Hmmph." And then rolled her eyes and kept looking.

8000 songs and nothing good. Well, if pleasing the kid means putting Jesse McCartney or Hilary Duff on my iPod, then yeah, there's nothing on there.

Next it was on to my GameBoy Advance Classic -- the one that looks like the old Nintendo. "You have a GameBoy too? What games?"

Seeing Tecmo Bowl, Blades of Steel, and Super Mario Bros, she declared that these games were old and no one cool plays them .And then asked a rhetorical question -- "Don't you have anything here that I like?"

You bet.

At this point my brother attempted to step in. He answered her matter-of-factly, "Is it your place?"

Unfazed, she went for my action figures/collectibles shelf. Pointing at my unopened pack of A-Team trading cards from 1984, she said "That's the guy from the phone commercials. He's dumb."

Speaking of course of the hallowed saint, Mr. T. She's really lucky I was so taken aback by the statement that I was quiet, because my response would not have been well-thought out and might have been rather illogical.

"What are these stupid raisins doing playing horns and guitars? MY raisins don't do that."

Of course they don't. Those are California Raisins, and they sing Motown hits like no fruit or vegetable before or since.

"Are these your sunglasses? EVERYONE knows mirrored sunglasses are stupid."

Not everyone. They are mine, and I think they're pretty awesome. And I've got about 200 people I met in St. Louis who would back me up on that.

"Do you have a laptop?" Yes, its in that bag. She pulled it out and turned it on. 9 years old, knows how to boot up an iBook and get on the Internet to check her email. Nice.

Now the Spanish Inquisition would begin, ultimately leading to me lying to a kid. I feel real bad about it, as you can probably tell from the tone of my voice.

"You sure do have a lot of stuff. You must make a lot of money."

"Yeah, I do alright."

"Like how much are we talking about? How much per hour?"

9 years old. Remember this.

I threw out a random figure, something to keep her satisfied until the next question. She reaches for my calculator and starts trying to figure out based on that number how much it is per hour. Good lord.

"I like math. Do you like math?"

"No, actually, I hate it. Numbers are not fun. I hate them." I do hate math. That's not a lie.

"So you make XXX a day, how many hours do you work a day?"

Told her 9.

"So we take XXX and divide it by 9. How much is that? You do it in your head, and I'll tell you if you're right!"

Gee, kid, you don't seem to understand. I don't do complicated mathematical equations like that in my head, that's why I have a calculator. But I humored her and legitimately tried to do it. I was off.

"You really are dumb at math. Jeez."

Rolled her eyes, and left the room to go back with her parents. Thank God. Anyone who hates on Mr T is not cool.