Three Boys and A Power Outage

How many times can a person play crazy eights before it begins to make them crazy? Six. You can play it six times. Beyond that, the crazies start to mess with your mind and you begin to feel an urge to grab a pair of scissors and gleefully cut up every... single... card. Okay. I can tell that a little perspective is in order. The subtle breakdown doesn’t actually happen solely as a result of playing consecutive games of crazy eights. In order to reach this pinnacle of nuttiness, you must first spend three nights filling the empty hours of candlelit quietude playing board games. When someone takes it too personally as you Sorry! them back to home for the fifth time, then it’s time to switch to a ‘fun’ card game instead. Why? Because if you can distract them long enough, then irrational anger, brought upon by losing many games in a row, will dissipate with the joy of winning an entertaining card game. At least that was my theory. Like most theories, mine was proven false. Under normal circumstances, game nights are fun and often rowdy events. So, you may be wondering why multiple, consecutive family game nights would result in multiple meltdowns. The answer is simple: power-outage-induced family game nights suck. Unlike their more traditional cousins, these are not times of bonding. No. That ended after the first night, when it felt sort of quaint to be gathered around the coffee table while candles spilled light on the otherwise invisible game board. These are torturous hours of forced proximity with people who were irritable long before mom decided fun games were in order. And now I face game-night-fun, part four. Which is forecast to have at least one more sequel. 

Sigh.