Conversation Around the Games Table

We have a nice, friendly group of ladies (once in a while a man will join us) who gather together most evenings to play card or board games. Lately we've played an awful lot of Rummoli but that's okay.

We don't play to win. We play to add a little diversion to the friendly conversation that sweeps around the table all evening. We add laugh lines to our elderly faces because the chatter is usually funny and we sure laugh often. Not too far from our table is the poker table and you seldom hear laughter from that area because they take their game seriously. That's not for me or the ladies at my table. We're constantly confused about whose turn it is and what card was played last but we never get upset, just laugh at our mistakes. In my estimation, this is the way games should be played.

Rummoli is played with pennies and just about the easiest game anyone can learn to play but we manage to screw it up a lot. Maybe it's the fact that we're playing with pennies and not big bucks. We do smile when we win and squawk when we lose but it's all in fun. At the end of every single phase of the game all the losers moan and groan about how many pennies they have to pay and how they were stuck with a pay card they couldn't get out. The winners don't give a damn but just collect their meagre winnings as though it was gold. Remember, the fun isn't in the money but in the comradeship.

Rummoli is a Canadian board game much like the American Michigan Rummy but Rummoli uses all the card suits for pay cards. Because we're playing in the States we play with American pennies and one of our U.S. ladies is always zeroing in on an offending Canadian penny as though it sullied the pack. Again, this makes us all laugh and I call her "Eagle Eyes". She's my yard saleing friend and she also has an eagle eye for gems in the trash. I just sold a ring set on Ebay for her ($50) that she found in a $5 boxlot of jewellery at a yard sale.

I guess this blog is about the bonding of friends around a friendly game of cards. Each one will offer small droplets of their life story as we're playing and that's how we get to know each other. There has never been an argument among us and I don't expect there ever will be.

I believe we play our games the way games were meant to be played...with friendship and laughter instead of the zest to win. We have fun.