I wonder if a game of Monopoly has ever ruined a marriage.
They say that the best test of compatibility between two people is to take a trip together, and I while I believe this to be a very useful exercise – why, just getting through airport security when one person is well organised and the other is not can be highly predictive of future harmony – I submit that playing a competitive board game such as Monopoly or Risk is the best test.
I don’t think I’ve played Risk since my twin best friends and I sat down to a game of it in their kitchen when we were fourteen. I remember that the game started companionably enough, with the crunching of potato chips and jokes about armies massing on borders etc. but the mood soon darkened. Some kind of feverish greed for power began to steal over the three of us. Polite, apologetic advances gave way to ruthless invasions. We stopped talking and our faces got red. Things got uglier and nastier until finally one of the twins stood up, seized the board by the edges and flung it off the table.
We never played it again or even talked about it but the incident has stayed in my mind as a reminder of how board games can turn ugly.
So when Noonie appeared in the kitchen last Sunday with the Monopoly box in her arms and asked if we would all like to play, I hesitated. Frankly, I have my reservations about Monopoly -- the games last longer than all good sense and by the end the players always hate each other -- but somehow I always think this time is going to be better. I mean, Monopoly is a paradigm of wholesome, family fun.
I couldn’t say no. Dude declined to join us (with reservations, I believe, in line with my own) but M agreed so the three of us sat down at the table. As the banker, Noonie dealt out our starting cash and we rolled the dice. I knew from the first round it wasn’t going to be my day. I landed on one of those cheap properties along the first side and bought it with alacrity but after that ended up on one of the railroads (actually, since we have the French Disney version of Monopoly – don’t ask – it’s not a railroad but "Bateau Pirate Capitaine Crochet"), and then on Go to Jail (or "Allez En Prison", in our case). While I sat in jail waiting for my next turn I watched Noonie make a solid purchase along the second side and M scoop up "Alice au pays des Herveilles" in the coveted yellow section.
The really crummy thing about Monopoly (which, in all fairness, its name does suggest) is the snowball effect. Once you start getting ahead of the other players, you just keeping getting further ahead. And when you fall behind, it’s a slow bleed till the ignominious moment you find yourself begging the person beside you to loan you three hundred bucks so you can stay in their hotel.
After several trips around the board I still didn’t have more than one of any property in a series and M was already putting houses on a low-income neighbourhood near the jail. I had managed to get one property in the second most valuable series, the green ones, which I clung on to in the hope that it would be a useful bargaining tool when I needed to make a private deal but nobody seemed very interested.
See, M gets very serious and strategic when he plays board games. He bought property which he knew I had my eye on, then offered to sell it to me at a scandalous price. He watched, hawk-eyed, every time I rolled the dice and made sure I moved my game piece the correct number of squares. When Noonie landed on one of M’s high-rent properties and couldn’t afford to pay him I helped her out. Then later, when I landed on one of his Las Vegas-type clusters of buildings and saw that the charge was more than my total sum of cash (and Noonie had no money to lend me) he watched impassively as I sat there pathetically re-counting my banknotes just in case a couple of fives had accidently stuck together.
“Look, I don’t have enough,” I said. “Could you let me stay for a discounted rate this time? Or maybe you want to buy my Aladdin property?”
“I’ll buy Aladdin,” he said. “For 200 dollars.”
“But that’s outrageous,” I spluttered. “That’s less than what I bought it for.”
He shrugged. “I have no pressing need for it. Take it or leave it.”
I’m sorry to have to say that M never has the decency to look sorry for driving someone to bankruptcy, despair and nights slumped in dark alleyways behind Park Place swigging mouth wash.
I glowered at him and, in a reckless indulgence of spleen, began to express my dissatisfaction with the core dynamics of Monopoly. I said it was a stupid game. I blamed the dice for harbouring ill-will toward me, and accused M of being too serious.
“Who’s being too serious?” he said. “You’re the one getting mad and whining about everything. And you were pretty cheerful earlier on when you thought you might win.”
I huffed and started to pack up my properties, plucking my Lady and the Tramp game piece off the board.
“What are you doing?” said M. “You can’t quit just because you’re not winning.”
“What’s the point of continuing?” I said. “You know there’s no chance for Noonie or I to recover our footing. From here on it’ll be like the lions starting to eat the gazelle who’s dying but not dead yet.”
“What have gazelles got to do with anything? You can borrow from the bank. There’s no need to have to declare bankruptcy yet.”
“Borrow from the bank?” I scoffed. “And how will I ever pay them back – with interest – when I have almost no income?”
“Well, you get your 200 dollars every time you pass Go.”
“And a fat lot of good that does me when your 101 Dalmatians hotel costs me 450 dollars every time I land on it.”
“Boy do you exaggerate. You’ve only landed on it once.”
“That’s right. And now I’m broke.”
I packed up my things, breathing heavily. I didn’t lift up the game board and fling it but I did shoot a withering glance at M’s little metal Pinocchio standing pertly on "Parc Gratuit", grinning inanely into space.
Noonie and M didn’t have much choice after that. M wandered back to the sofa to see what was on tv while Noonie slowly packed the game back up.
“I’m sorry, Noonie,” I told her later. “I always forget how much I hate that game. Plus, I mean, I kind of wish people wouldn’t try so hard to win.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes I hate Monopoly, too, but sometimes it’s fun.”
“You mean like when you’re winning?”
“Yeah.”
“Some games are a love/hate relationship,” I sighed.
“Yup.”
“Some are always good, though.”
“Yeah, like Uno.”
“Yes! Like Uno. Now there’s a game I’m good at.”
M, strolling through the room, said, “Uno? You can’t say you’re good at a game that is based almost entirely on luck. It makes no sense. It’s like saying you’re good at winning door prizes.”
“Actually, I know a couple of people who are good at winning door prizes,” I said.
A pained looked passed over M’s face but he said nothing.
“I just think games like Uno are better at keeping things light, you know?” I said. “Monopoly is no good for a marriage.”
“Certainly not for husbands,” M agreed with enthusiasm. “I bet there have been a few men to lose body parts over it.”
He suddenly eyed me suspiciously. “I think we should put away all the knives next time we play. Just as a precaution.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said. “I’m not going to let Monopoly ruin our marriage.”
“But if we never play again how will you ever pay me back the 450 dollars you owe me for staying in my 101 Dalmatians hotel?” he said with a evil grin. And exited the room with impressive speed.