Gamer

Eva won’t keep her mitts out of the game cupboard.  At first she was only interested in Pit.  She would dump all of the cards onto the floor and carry around the bell shouting, “Ding!”  I tried to show her that the bell would ding on its own if she would set it down and tap the button.  She wasn’t interested in my tutorial and preferred practicing ventriloquism and creating her own dinging noise. Every day she would fetch the bell and every night I would return it to its home in the cupboard.  This went on for a couple of weeks until she transitioned to other games.  I realize now that Pit was a gateway game.

This week she’s been carrying around the buzzer from Taboo.  She named it, “My special purple present with the red button,” and she wanders around buzzing it all day.  That’s not an annoying sound to have in the background.  For a few days I patiently carried on the same routine as with the Pit bell and didn’t interfere with her new hobby. 

When will I learn that I should always interfere?

A couple of days ago Eva went on an intense search for a new instrument of annoyance.   She pilfered something from nearly every game we own. 

She chose the timer from Catch Phrase and the card tray from Mille Bornes.

    

The tiny white and red pieces from Battleship were a good choice.

And all of the checkers from Connect Four.

The colorful pawns from Sorry are loads of fun.

Don’t overlook the oddly-shaped die and the cringe-inducing timer from Scattergories.  Sidebar: When I was picking up all the loose papers from Scattergories, I found a game sheet that my brother Jameson had used.  He had written, “Lewie smells like poo,” on the top of the paper.  Based on that, you’d probably call me a liar if I told you that Jameson is the most intelligent of my siblings.  He is.  (And Lewie only sometimes smells like poo.)

 

One must never forget her roots; that loyal bell from Pit.

When she was finished our house looked like it had been tossed by a masked intruder.  Unfortunately, I won’t be inviting you over for game night anytime soon since all of our games have been through war and are now missing limbs.   

I confronted Eva about the mess and this is what she had to say:

 

Clearly we don’t own any games that teach penitence. 

Is there an app for that?