Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Rules Shmules

Before Laura was born, at the end of every year, our mom would take us to Toys R' Us and let us each pick out a present for our birthdays/Christmas. Our little brother almost always got one of those Tiger electronic games. Tina and I, on the other hand, would always get ourselves a board game. We loved board games, but unfortunately they didn't love us. That's because we never ever read the directions. We usually just made the rules up.

LIFE was the only game we played correctly only because we just had to spin the wheel and move around the board. Easy Peasy. If it got anymore complicated than that, we'll turn the board into another game entirely...one that suited us. Rules shmules.

We didn't even play the classics correctly. Like Clue. We had no idea how to play it. We instead turned the board and game pieces into a two-dimensional dollhouse. Hehe. Also, another one is Monopoly. We didn't get the point at all--that you have to create monopolies. We collected rent and built houses as we pleased. Oh, Mousetrap was the best. We just played with the trap and didn't actually play the game.

Over the years, Tina and I collected dozens of board games, all of which we didn't really know how to play. Come to think of it. Why did we keep buying them?

Our relaxed attitude toward game rules continued into high school. It never bothered us. And we didn't think it was weird. That is until Taboo. Tina and I introduced the game to our friends and taught them how to play. We played it at get-togethers and birthday parties. Then one friend played it elsewhere and discovered that we are idiots and had been playing it wrong! Whoops. We should have mentioned that we never read the rules. Instead of guessing the word at the top of the card, we made everyone guess all the words at the bottom. Looking back, I realize that doesn't many ANY sense. But we lived on the edge. Rules were too confining for our brilliant minds.

To this day, friends would bring up the Taboo incident. Tehe. If you were wondering, we finally figured out the rules to Clue and Monopoly too. It only took us 15 years.

5 comments:

Laura said...

Thank god you guys learned by the time I started liking games.. Now I'm always the one teaching people how to play games. But unlike you guys I can't stand not knowing how to play games. I always read the rules.

I remember one time when I was like 10, I bought Mancala but didnt know how to play so Tina (who was like 22 at the time) read the directions so she could play with me. So we starting playing it the way she THOUGHT we were supposed to play it but I played with my friends and learned I was playing it completely wrong.. Thanks Tina.

Tara said...

Haha! That had nothing to do with me...so that is good.

Tina said...

Hey, in my defense, those darn directions are so confusing. Player 1 collects the beans and move up the appropriate spaces, while doing a curtsy and a twirl. Then Player 2 makes chicken noises while rolling the die and can only skip 3 spaces, if he or she rolls a 6, 9, or 12.

Tara said...

I actually laughed at your stoopid comment. Haha! I didn't expect it.

Laura said...

YOU BOTH ARE STOOPID!