As a friend once told me, I am very good at writing about the banal. I am not sure whether that was a compliment or he was laughing at me, I took it as a compliment. I am happy to write about the little things in life. No great plans or ideas here, just small things that happen in life every day. Thanks Tim. I will continue on my mission.
Actually everything I write can be tied into big concepts. Cheating! That has implications all the way up the line in every line of work. But here I am writing about cheating in a game.
In fact, cheating against me.
My older daughter, 8 years old at this writing, not even 10, gets into games with a fervor, or a fever. She learns a new game and wants to play it ... lots. I think that is normal, probably even for adults.
Well, the problem is, I have played these games for 30 years, or learned them 30 years ago and know all the ins and outs and strategic minutiae of these past times. The question I pose myself is: should I let her win once in a while? Cheat against myself and lose on purpose?
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| Checkers Another fine, fun boardgame |
my Mother, let alone my Father. That got me down. But I kept at it. I ask myself now, did they break down and let me win some games after we played checkers about 103 times? I remember how I had a friend over and we played several games of checkers and by the last he was getting nasty because I was beating him all the time. He did some trick and cheated and I said so and he
ended up running out from my house real angry and demanded that I acquiesce that he beat me. It sticks in my memory as a bad moment.
At our last vacation at my Mothers I found some games from my youth. My absolute favorite was Stratego. I mean besides matchbox cars and rock em sock em robot, which didn't last that long in playing, Stratego was the chess for kids. The picture at the top of the post is indeed a picture of Stratego. The game is made up of deep blue and red pieces on a green board moving pieces around like checkers or chess, it was so so stimulating to several of the senses. I loved playing it.
And now, I found it at my Mothers, dusted it off and taught my older girl how to play. Its a very involving game, as much as checkers or even chess. It can be very complicated. On the box it says, "Ages 10 to adult". Well my daughter is 8 as I said. She is still two years off. Its not for her. But what? Am I going to wait and say, "you cant play it yet, we have to wait two years"? I mean its not like alcohol which you cant drink before 18. At least I don't think it is going to kill her brain cells or something. Just the opposite. And some things, I agree, they cant be done by kids because they don't have the motor skills or dexterity. But this is none of that. Except that maybe she doesn`t have her reasoning skills, strategic skills well developed. Well, no time like the present.
So I taught her.
Trouble.
The game takes at least 45 minutes to play. I mean it takes 10 to 15 just to set it up. So when we play we cant play before school, playing before bedtime has gotten me yelled at by Mom, so the only time is just after school. And I am not home every day for her after school. So this leaves her pent up and wanting to play with a big desire.
I wouldn't say we have played 103 times. In fact maybe 10, but she is getting frustrated. I don't really want to play anymore because each game ends with me winning and she is in tears. I try to teach her that the whole game is fun, playing it is just as much fun. It is the journey that is fun, not the arrival, if she could learn this, she will be happy in life. But sadly, not very many people at all learn this and they are failures, yes failures as a result in their life, because death is the ultimate end of the journey when we arrive and finish. If I could teach her to be satisfied with the playing IT WOULD HAVE GREAT CONSEQUENCES IN HER WELL BEING.
Nope. She just mostly likes the end when someone wins.
And,
that has always been me.
So she doesn't like it.
She cries.
So what can I do?
Brings me back to my original banal question of the week, Tim. Should I cheat against myself and lose? This is an important question to answer, oh Dads of the world 1 per centers to 100 per centers. Should you lose on purpose? And how much and how often? I have to take a break and ponder this question for a while. Be back with you soon.
After thinking about that all week, I have decided that it is important to let thw kisa win sometimes. Losing ALL the time really destroys them. You have to give them a bit of confidence in themselves. This can come about by them winning, or it can be destroyed in them, utterly when they lose all the time. I don't want to destroy my girls self confidence. I can destroy my own self confidence, or maybe it was already destroyed by losing so much on the stock market and the casting jobs I have tried to get. But to destroy my little girl`s self confidence, I think a little cheating is worth it so as not to break her heart. That would break my heart as well. Two broken hearts with one stone, so to speak.
You can disagree if you want. But I have made my decision.
Epilogue
In the end it didn't really matter if I had decided to let her win. She won the next game we played. I blew up both my 1 and 2, the lowest, strongest numbers, on bombs. Me and my short term bad memory got the best of me and she won. You should have seen how happy she was. She was dancing all over and jumping on me. Wow. Mm, now I have taught her 5 year old sister how to play the game..... she is even worse. What should I do? Oh no, here we go again.
One favorite track I have listened to about as many times as I have played Stratego recently is this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRnIsALNrgg
It sounds like crap on the You tube link here, compared to the vinyl single I have. Buy and listen to vinyl. Ditch your weak strained youtube s..t
I can imagine Charlie Chaplain doing his work happily in the factory in the movie MODERN TIMES as this music is played in the background. Everybody would even start doing a robotic, mechanical dance.
