Do you Do Dominoes?

Over the holidays we (yes the royal 'we') learned a new game- Dominoes! We both thought we already knew how to play the game- it's something every child (in the old days) owned and played with. When Southern Belle invited us over for an evening of hamburgers and dominoes we said "of course", mostly for the opportunity to eat her highly praised homemade burgers and Yes! her homemade hamburger buns. Yummm yum!

Well, yeah... they were delicious, but the best part of the evening was playing Dominoes! P and I both thought we knew what to do, but it turned out we had been playing kid-style Dominoes. Grown-up Dominoes is another game altogether. And it's fun. Great fun. It's not just about placing your tile next to a matching one, or standing the tiles up and knocking them over. There's strategy and frustration, and opportunities to be a little bit mean or to show a little kindness to your fellow gameplayers.

Of course, I lost. As I always do in cards or board games. I lost bad. You're supposed to try to end up with the lowest score as The Dutch Lady did with a score of 28 or so. I ended up with something like 450 points, more than any other player that evening. Oh well. I've always refused to play cards and board games with my family precisely for this reason-- I ALWAYS lose. And that's no fun is it? I remember when our son used to play ice hockey and P tried to teach him that 'it's not about whether you win or lose, it's all about having fun', and J looked up at him with his big blue eyes and said "Well it's NOT FUN to lose every game dad". And he's soooo right. Losing is not fun. Waahhhhhhh.

So why did I grab the Southern Belle by her arm last night and plead with her to invite us over to her place tonight for another chance to play Dominoes??? Either I'm a sucker for punishment or an eternal optimist. I'll let you know which it is after tonight's game.