away with your games

I'm not a super competitive person. If I don't think I'll win, I probably won't play whatever it is that annoying people are trying to coerce me into playing. "Come on," they say. "You're a fun person! What fun person doesn't want to spend 4 hours sitting in a wooden chair pretending to take over other nations on a board game, with 1,435 rules? That's so FUN!" or "Come ooon! Of course you want to go out in the cold/hot/diseased air and run in the grass with bugs, to kick a ball, for NO reason!" But despite their totally logical arguments, the fact is, I don't like games or competitions.

Originally, this was supposed to be a heartwarming entry about how we want our children to succeed, and to ride on our shoulders, metaphorically, and be more than we are. But then I got all distracted thinking about people who play games, and now I have to talk about that. So now, instead of reposting me and spending a reflective 3 minutes thinking about childhood, I'm just going to make you feel weird about inviting me to baby showers.

Baby showers are the worst. You get dressed up and you buy a hooded towel or some other baby gimmick that NO ONE EVER USES and you go, and you're happy about the baby, and the mommy and all, but then there starts being all this pressure about putting down the mini quiche and the spinach dip or what have you, so you can wrap your friend in toilet paper or clip clothes pins on your collar or (God help us) eat melted candy out of a diaper. And the next thing you know you're enveloped in stress, paranoid of crossing your legs or saying "cute" in front of the jury of your peers, and you're transmitting all these hostile vibes to the unborn guest of honor, and isn't it fun? I think I'd like a baby shower where you just drop your present off at the door and give the mommy a hug, and she'd give you a goody bag with some hor d'oeuvres, and you could go home and eat them in your pjs.

As far as grownup parties, we don't drink and we don't have a game system, so games at our parties are pretty much limited to whatever board games our children have not desecrated beyond recognition. "We'll just use a nickel for a game piece," we say sheepishly. Anyway. At first it's fun, but then I remember that everyone else in the world really, really wants to win, really, really bad. Especially the MOG. In fact, he will humiliate children and end decade long friendships with his in-it-to-win-it-ness. And maybe I sneak away to talk to some queso, and then everybody's calling in that voice, "Jessic-uuuuuhhhhhh! You need to come draw using only chalk and your nostrils!" And my eyes are rolling way up in my head like I'm having a seizure, but it's just wasted attitude.

So I stand alone, a Sanguine island in the middle of the frivolity. I just want to eat stuff and tell funny stories, you know?