Fraidy Cats

Earlier this evening my daughter asked me to go into her closet and get a game for all of us to play. I normally avoid going into her room at all costs, especially her closet. However, after my wife agreed to play with us I gave in and dug out the game she wanted us to play... Fraidy Cats!

While I was getting the board ready (some assembly required) my daughter asked my wife which cat she wanted to be (the orange one) and then asked me which one I wanted to be (the yellow one). After taking possession of the yellow cat my daughter suddenly decided that she had to be the yellow cat.

I held off on giving it to her until my wife gave me one of those looks. So, I gave it to her after giving her one of those, "you can't get your way all the time in life" speeches. At the the end I threw in one of those, "I will show you no mercy" remarks.

We were playing the game and the dog was running all over the board. Each of us got sent back to the starting area once but my wife pulled in an early victory. My daughter and I were both gunning for second place and wouldn't you know it? I came in second and the dog sent her crying back to start! Yeah, we put that one away and now it was my turn to pick a game.

Tiki Mountain

While putting the Fraidy Cats game back in her closet she made a comment, "no Ticket to Ride Daddy!" I was not planning on pulling that one out, I was aiming for Tiki Mountain!

I got this game a few months ago and have only managed to play it a few times. Every time I played it I had a blast but, for some reason my daughter would not let us play it. She wanted to restrict us to games that are in her closet and her closet only. After I commented that I would just rather not play anymore games this evening my wife got her to agree to allow me to bring in three games from my game room and then we would vote on which games to play.

With sadness in my eyes I took Tiki Mountain back to the game room and came back with three games; Pirate's Cove, Apple to Apples and Aggravation.

Apples to Apples

I knew we would not be playing Pirate's Cove so I was not at all surprised when that game was nixed. After my daughter tried to nix all the games, "I can't play Apples to Apples because it says 9 and up and I'm only 8," we managed to convince her that she could play the Apples to Apples game with us.

That game went very well except for the fact that it was only three players and my daughter has a way of making it known which card she played. she does not come right out and say which one she played but, after playing our cards she will look at the one I played (the one she did not play) and say something like, "Hamburgers, who played that card?" Yeah... 'nuff said?

In the end my daughter won that game but it was all right as she was not being as cranky as she was earlier while playing Fraidy Cats. In fact, she was in such a good humor that we pulled out Aggravation and gave it a shot.

Aggravation

Yes, that is the version we have. The ancient Deluxe version of the game. This thing is so old all of the dice have little stress fractures on them!

At any rate we set down to playing it. I explained the basic rules of the game and we started. For those who are unfamiliar with the game think of Sorry mixed with Parchisi. You need to get your marbles around the board and into your safe zone. There are some shortcut spaces on the board and the super shortcut space is in the middle. If you land (by exact count) on another player's marble you send it back to their home. Any guesses on how this one turned out?

After about turn five or six I had already sent one of my wife's marbles back to home and one belonging to my daughter. My wife just gave the "I'll get you back for that look" while my daughter (very tired at this point) erupted in tears and yelling. Once again I was the bad guy for playing the game as written.

A few turns later my wife got me back but my daughter was becoming very disruptive. She was making up some strange house rules (that we ignored) such as no one can use the shortcuts and ignoring the rule on landing by exact count on a home space. Several turns later I won and those two duked it out for second.

Not long after putting the games away my daughter was conked out on the couch. It was a long tiring day for her and I guess she just could not take it anymore. I don't know why she was so tired, I was the one who spent most of the day painting the living room walls and trim. All she had to do was go shopping with my wife and be a kid.

There you have it, my own personal horror story.