Games

I love playing games.  Maybe I should be more specific - I LOVE playing games! Scene It, Apples to Apples, Gin Rummy, Rummikub, Backgammon, Chess, Horse, Air Hockey, Dart Throwing, Pictionary, Scrabble, Boggle, Target Shooting - pretty much any contest or game - I AM IN!  If there is a chance to win - I want to win. I am sure it wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that I am really competitive.  I mean REALLY competitive. I am not in any way a sore loser - I mean if I lose - well then I lose and I am good about that.  I sincerely congratulate the other player and am actually happy that a good game was played. I like a challenge and in every single game - there is always someone who will win and someone who will lose so I take my losses well. BUT as the game is going on - I give it ALL I have. Growing up, I always played games with my sister.  My mom is NOT a game player.  In fact she hates games with the exact same intensity that my sister and I have for loving games. We played everything we could when we were little and still do to this day.  Whenever we are lucky enough to spend time together, you will catch us playing something. We love playing together and are very enthusiastic about it. We have to be very careful not to stand too close to one another if we ever play Wii Tennis.  We would literally knock one another unconscious with the racket in our attempts to ACE the virtual ball.  I think we both complain that we have virtual tennis elbow by the end of our set. We try to keep the game playing alive even though we live so far apart. We both have games on our ipods so that we are never without a good rivalry. We keep scores on most everything we play and compare notes. Scrabble competitions can be quite brutal.  We might spend an entire day thinking of just the BEST word we can play. I mean you wouldn't want to play a word for 42 points if you could come up with one that would count for 43 points! Even if we aren't playing against each other, we will MAKE it a competition. For some reason it matters to us what ranking of the marble rolling labyrinth game we have achieved. In our level to be the very best game player AND ultimate winner - we started a game way back when we were little kids. One day when we were waiting for our mom, we decided we would see who could say the alphabet the slowest.  I think I was about 10 at the time so my sister would have been 5.  It went something like this - A....B...C... and then it was my turn A.......B.......C..... Then her turn again A.........................B....................................C......................and this went on all day.  It was then I decided I would win this game.  I gave her the letter A that day.  The next day I gave her the letter B.  The next year I decided to give her the letter C.  It is now 35 years later and for her birthday this Sunday, I think I will finally give her the letter K. I mean what says Happy 40th Birthday better than the letter K?  I figure the day I turn 90 I will give her the letter Z. That way she can start her turn.  I mean giving me the letter A on my 90th Birthday seems like a pretty awesome way to celebrate the day.  She will only have to drag the alphabet game out a good 80+ years in order to win.  Knowing my sister's will to win -- she just might do it!