Jul 24, 2023 3 min read

Summertime with family and friends is a treat, but at most gatherings, someone whips out the board games. That’s when the anxiety hits. I see cards, puzzles or dice – even if the dice are encased in a Pop-O-Matic – I get nervous.

I have board game PTSD, like those kids from “Jumanji.”

I bet Peter and Judy Shepherd never had to play another board game after having a jungle come to life in their living room. When you roll dice and rhinos stampede through the kitchen, no one asks you to join in on family game night.

There are a few board games I simply refuse to play.

If you haul out the Monopoly board, I will run in the other direction. Superman will hang around Kryptonite longer than I will hang out around a Monopoly board.

Curse you, Mr. Milburn Pennybags!

Side note: Milburn Pennybags is the official name of the rich old man with the handlebar mustache, top hat and monocle on the cover of the Monopoly board. I hate that dude.

But I digress, like I do. The Monopoly game isn’t a fair game from the beginning. One person gets to be a race car. One person gets to be a cute little doggy. Then, the next person gets stuck with either a thimble, an iron or a shoe. The inequity of the pieces stymies me. To me, if you’re the thimble, you’ve already lost the game.

I remember one particular game of Monopoly from my childhood that ended at 2 o’clock in the morning in a fist fight. The card table was overturned, and kaleidoscopic fake money went flying everywhere. Three plastic hotels, two yellow 10-dollar bills and one bright orange $500 bill were never seen again.

I don’t like Yahtzee, either. Until today, I didn’t even know how to spell it correctly. It’s an unnecessarily difficult word.

Frankly, when I was a teenager, I thought it was a province in China and not a board game. I don’t want to do math when I’m playing a game. You don’t want me to play any game where I have to say, “Carry the one” or “Let me get a calculator.”

In Vegas, I was unbelievably bad at Blackjack because I counted aloud. I had the eight of spades and a four of hearts, and I turned to the players around me and said, “Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Hit me!”

The dealer definitely wanted to hit me. Everyone wanted to hit me.

I’m down for Scramble, Boggle or any word game, but my bad math skills preclude me from ever being the game night scorekeeper. I don’t add in my head.

If you’re playing Rapid Recall, I’m out. I thought it was the name of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It is not. It’s a memory game. Don’t ask me to play memory games either. My mind is starting to go. I’d like to tell you more about it, but I forgot how to play.