Game Night

Game night was born the same night the photo above was taken. It was New Years Eve, my friends and I had been "celebrating" for quite some time, and we played Pictionary, guys against girls, for many, many hours. The girls won because we did not cheat, and cheaters never win. That night was the last night that game night did not end in a near brawl.

I'm not sure if your game nights always get ugly, but ours do. Last night was no exception. There are six of us, and no matter what game we play, how much we do or do not drink, what time it is, whose house we're at, or how set-in-stone we try to make the rules at the onset of the game, there is inevitably an accusation of cheating, which then begins the war. After the first accusation, there is one about every other turn of the game. Teeth are gritted, insults are hurled, voices are raised. It never matters what team wins because the other team swears they cheated, and we're all unable to hang out together for at least a month.

Unrelated side note: I can barely focus on writing this because all I can think about is the chicken biscuit I talked myself out of getting for breakfast. Is that the opposite of buyer's remorse? Didn't buyer's remorse or something?

Last night, my son was added to the mix of the drama of game night (all of our children were there, but mine was the one working my nerves). Of course, he was dumping cokes all over coffee tables and climbing and squirming and not wanting to be held or put down and basically just exhibiting generally obnoxious behavior. All at my expense and none at his father's, might I add. While all of this was going on, each team had somehow managed to garner one win. It had already been an ugly battle and the finger pointing had begun long before we made it to the tie-breaker round. I was tired and cranky and very much over game night.

The last straw for me was when all three of the still-awake children were sitting in the laps of the girls' team. We were playing Family Feud, (which requires writing....which is hard to do with children crawling all over you...which you'd think a member of the boys' team would have noticed...I digress) and even after we had gone over the same rule on at least six separate occasions, a member of the boys' team began the argument anew.

I'll not insult you by telling you that I'm not competitive and that I don't care about winning and that I'm super patient. That would all be lies, and we all know that. So, what did I do? I shut down game night. Michael and I had brought the game. So, I stood up, told Michael we were leaving, put my son in his car seat, packed up everything we had brought over and proclaimed, "I'll be in the car." Then stormed out amid everyone else, including poor Michael, trying to make brownie sundaes and avoid Michelle-zilla.

Looks like my games will be collecting dust for another year before we venture into this well-charted territory once again in hopes that we will one day have a game night without near bloodshed.