I'm a Two Time Loser.

My mother died in 1997. Before she did, she gave me the 60th Anniversary edition of Monopoly for Christmas. Since then, I have never played Monopoly on any other board. It's a little schmoopy, yes, but it's one of my quirks. My brother gave me the Disney Monopoly Board, complete with little peuter Disney characters for Christmas a few years back. I told him thank you, then went home, confiscated all the money and pieces from it, gave the board to the kids and put the pieces with the game my mom gave me. (Cj still bitches about this. "Fine. That's fine. You tear my gift apart and add it to mom's board. See if I ever get you a present again.")

So, today, it's rainy and yucky, and I needed a break from working on the site, and Jas asked me to play. I said sure. I'll play. I'm undefeated. I've NEVER EVER lost on that board. I've got something like a 59 game winning streak. I like it that way. I'm a good sportsman, but if you even almost kick my ass at Monopoly on that board, it gets very tense.

So, at 11:00 this morning, I go to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. I come back and he's got my guy on the board. My guy is Mr. Monopoly himself. Something or other Pennybags, I think his name is. He's MY guy. As in, you toucha-I-breaka-you-face. I said, "Uh, what do you think you're doing. You know he's mine. That's my guy. My game, my guy." He says, "Lets see how you do without him. Humor me. It's a crutch, baby. Don't lean on your crutch."

So, I say, fine. I'll use Dumbo. This, friends, is my idea of antagonism. Jas had big ears when he was a kid. All the little kindergardners called him Dumbo. He's since grown into them, but he still has nightmares, and worries for the sake of our children. Since this was obviously war, I pick Dumbo, the BIG, FLOPPY EARED Elephant. Heh heh.

In game one, I ended up owning all the light blue properties, two railroads (which we fought over quite a bit), the pink properties, the orange properties, the yellow properties and the green properties. So, how the hell did I lose? I landed on Boardwalk. 4 times in a freakin' row. DAMN Dumbo. He's now a retired piece.

I was getting REALLY pissed. Not so much that Jas was winning, but that I was losing, even though I owned 80% of the freakin' board. By all means, I should have won. Yet, I didn't.

I said, "We're playing again." Jas says "Yeah, I don't really want to. It's almost 7:00." I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, were you under the impression you had a choice on the matter?" He said "Frozen pizza for dinner?" I said, "Uh huh. Switch me over to Mountain Dew while you're out there, will ya? I'll set up."

He came back, and found that I had taken Mr. PennyBags back. He says "Oh, I see how it is. You can't stand for someone else to have the winning piece." I said "No, it's not that. Its just that I think my mom wanted me to have that piece. She said it was my game, and that I should pick my special piece. Its special because my dead mother gave it to me. You're not mean enough to take the piece away from me after I already lost my mother, are you?" (This is me being REALLY evil.) Then I said "Hey...my dog got run over by a car when I was seven, why don't you go dig him up and play fetch with his bones. God you're so mean. I hope my mom's watching you right..." He says "FINE. Take the damn piece. If she is looking in, she's gonna kick your ass for using her name to get a damn monopoly piece. But fine. I concede. TAKE IT. I'll use Mogli."

I grin.

So, on to game two. Game two went on for FREAKIN' EVER. It's 2:25am right now. He went to bed about 30 minutes ago. I kept going to jail, and didn't make it all the way around the board past "GO" for like 9 rounds in a row. So, I couldn't buy property. You have to go all the way around the board before you can purchase any property. So, he's buying everything up, and by the time I finally got my butt out of the clink, all that was left was the green properties and the red properties. Everything else he had. Even so, for four straight hours, I kicked his ass. Then, because we were so even, and we were getting so tired of playing, I said "Let's make it interesting. Let's pay double for every bill and rental fee." We agreed since it was obvious that nothing else was going to cause one of us to win it. And what happened? I landed on Boardwalk twice in a row. That's 4 grand every time you land on it at double the price. So, 8 grand later, I'm outta the game.

Now what? I can't very well retire Mr. Pennybags. But, on the otherhand, he's been jinxed and bastardized by being played by another person.