Categories: uncategorized
Date: 28 January 2007 13:58:58
"Just give us yer f**kin' money!"
Or, in other words, I was playing Monopoly with some friends last night. I haven't played for several years, and remembering how the rules worked was a bit of a challenge (although having said that, the last time I'd played I'd shown very little observance of the rules and had eventually been disqualified for trying to embezzle money from the bank and set myself up as a tax exile). Of course, it was made a little harder by the fact that we were playing the Stuttgart edition, which obviously has lots of strasses and bahnhofs that you can buy, but also has all its instructions, Chance cards and what-have-you in German. (There are a large number of random items around the house in a variety of European languages, thanks to my housemate who grew up in Belgium but has obviously travelled around a bit)
Now German was the only subject I achieved an A grade in at school, but it's amazing how quickly you can forget this stuff when you're not using it every day. I could pick up bits of it (I think I could just about have reognised "you have won third prize in a beauty contest" had it come up) but having to get everything translated as we went along just dragged the game out a little longer. And herein lies the problem.
For a while I was really enjoying it. Everyone was buying up streets, taking Deutsch Marks off each other indiscriminately, and generally having a good laugh. But then, about the time people started building houses and trying to do deals with each other for the streets that would give them a full colour set, I got rather bored with it all (of course, this had nothing to do with me losing. Not at all. No sirree, Bob etc). Which would be fine if I could just walk away from it all, but somehow I can't do that. So I keep playing, maybe a bit more recklessly than before, in the hope I might go bankrupt or be able to bankrupt everyone else. And then the game rumbles on for another hour, by which point the will to leave is quickly seaping away from me.
I have the same problem with playing poker - I love it up to a point and then I want it to stop, but that point is generally about halfway through the game. Doh.
Anyway, housemate eventually won, having bankrupted one of our friends (whose wife had given up some time earlier and fallen asleep in a chair while waiting for us to finish. I might try that tactic next time). I gave in, reasoning that the only way the game would end now was with me being bankrupted too, and the whole thing was finally over. I expect I won't be playing again for a while...