Sore Loser

Once upon a time, I was a pretty sore loser.  I’m generally pretty good at games and I’m used to winning.  There was a time when, if I lost, I got cranky about it and generally pouted.  I finally realized how stupid I was being one day when I realized I couldn’t remember who had won last time we played.

Now, I’m not one of those people who believe winning doesn’t matter and that everyone should get a trophy just for showing up.  Nope.  When you do well, you win, and when you do poorly, you’ve lost.  Kids need to learn the difference between winning and losing.  They need to learn to be good sports when they lose, and if they don’t like it, they can practice more!

Winning both matters and doesn’t matter.  The fact is that we can’t all be winners every time.  We need to know what we’re good at, and what we aren’t.  And if we enjoy something we suck at, that’s okay, but we shouldn’t get trophies just for showing up.  I can’t sing.  It’s a well-known fact.  If I ever went on American Idol, I can guarantee I’d be booed off.  And I should be.  Why?  Because I can’t sing!  I can, however, remember jingles and song lyrics for everything I’ve ever heard.  I like singing.  Alone, in my car.

Last night, we played this great game, bezzerwizzer.  It’s a trivia and strategy game.  My brother in law, who is very competitive with me, switched my tiles so I got a geography tile.  I tried to answer geography questions for maybe 10 turns.  I lost the game, but we all laughed at my inability to remember any kind of world geography.  We also played Shrek Super Party, and during that game, he sabotaged me whenever I was involved in a duel against someone else.

For a brief moment, I thought about getting upset with the sabotage and the fact that I was losing.  Badly.  Then I checked myself and remembered… It’s just a game.  We’re all laughing and having fun.  So I relaxed and went with it.  Later, I got my revenge during Life.  Game Karma bit my brother in law in the you-know-what.  He couldn’t land on any positive space and ended the game with $1000.  And you know what?  I laughed just as hard at him as I did at myself.  Who needs a trophy?

I Feel Dumber

My sister in law and brother in law are in town, and one of the things we like to do together is play board games at night.  It’s sort of a family tradition.

Well, we went to Target for some Play-Doh, since the clay in our Cranium dried up.  While we were there, we decided to look for a new version of Trivial Pursuit, since ours is from…. well, it’s old.

They had some classic games, like Scrabble and Clue, but they also had a Storage Wars game.  And not a single Trivial Pursuit to be found.  So we looked in electronics, figuring that would be a perfect X-box or Wii game with live updating.  Nope.  We tried Wal-Mart, since Wal-mart usually has pretty much everything.  Does no one sell Trivial Pursuit???  When did the game go away??

We ended up buying a game called bezzerwizzer, which is fun, but it’s no Trivial Pursuit.  The questions are mixed for easy and hard, and there are more categories.  You can also steal attractive categories from other people and steal questions.

You know, sometimes I say that I think people are dumber, but I don’t really mean it.  Kids know more and harder stuff than they used to.  Maybe it’s laziness?  We don’t want to think too hard during leisure time.  I found some versions of Trivial Pursuit on Amazon, but they look like older versions.  Where’s my updated version?

Either way, we had fun, and that’s what matters.  We have a new game, but it’s not the same without Trivial Pursuit…