It’s all fun and games

There is a sickness ravaging my home—a madness, you might call it. It’s not COVID-19 or anything actually life-threatening, thank goodness. But it is nonetheless a tribulation I have been forced to bear. I speak of my family’s unmitigated love of games, and their desire to play them at all times: board games, card games, fast-paced games that make your heart race, and games that are so drawn out that you wish an asteroid would obliterate the Northern Hemisphere and just end it already.

“Games are fun!” you might be saying. “Why, if I had someone to play games with me all the time, I would be thrilled.” Really? Have you ever played “Ticket to Ride” for two hours when all you really want to do is sit down and watch a movie? Have you ever sat through ten rounds of “Rook,” not only fumbling your way through the actual card playing but then being forced to listen to the blow-by-blow commentary afterwards reviewing every move that was made?

I’m not sure why I am the way I am—what past trauma has created in me this aversion to fun. But I’m not a total curmudgeon. I enjoy certain types of games, usually ones that require zero strategy and are guaranteed to last no longer than 20 minutes. “Uno,” “Catch Phrase,” “Nerts,” “Rummikub”—I will play any of those happily for a limited time. But if someone pulls out “Settlers of Catan” or the dreaded “Rook,” I start thinking of ways to fake my own death.

One night last summer, we invited some friends over for dinner. We enjoyed a relaxing barbecue outside and were chatting happily around the patio table when, much to my horror, my husband suggested that we play a new game he had recently purchased, called “Scotland Yard”. I audibly groaned. “Scotland Yard” is one of those games that takes almost as long to explain as it does to play—think “Cones of Dunshire” if you’re a fan of the old TV show “Parks and Recreation.”

But nothing could deter my game-loving husband. I sat at the table like a trapped animal, darting glances from side to side to see if there was any way I could escape. And then, just a few minutes into the game, a child’s cry rang out from somewhere in the yard. 

“Dare I hope?” I wondered as the cry grew louder. “Could this be my ticket out?” I was overjoyed when one of my children—I don’t remember which one, and really, does it even matter?—stumbled up to me and said they had been stung by a bee. 

“Oh dear!” I said with delight. “You poor thing. I’d better get you inside so I can take a look.”

No one questioned me as I hurriedly left the game and “tended to the wound” for the next hour. It was the perfect cover.

But now that we’re all in quarantine together, there’s no escape. You can only claim to “be putting the finishing touches on dinner” so many times before people start getting wise to you and insisting that you join in their fun. 

For my husband’s birthday a few weeks ago, two of our sons pooled their money together to buy him a new game. It was the kind of game with an instruction manual that goes on for pages and pages and is translated into multiple languages so people can also be tortured in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. 

Logan was in his element as he set up the board, organized the playing pieces, and read aloud the instructions. As he called the whole family over to play his new game, I pulled out my phone to snap a picture of his dream—and my nightmare—unfolding. It wasn’t until later that I looked closely at the photo and noticed five-year-old Hyrum sitting at the end of the table, his head clutched between his hands and his face a picture of inexpressible agony—much like the tormented soul in the famous painting “The Scream”. Hyrum looked exactly how I felt. Maybe in all this madness I have an ally on my side after all.