I Am The Whizzing Hat

My grandsons Gret and Reece were here visiting this week with their mother, my daughter Beckie.

Gret, who is 8, loves Monopoly but it wasn't enough for us to just sit down at the dining room table and play a game... oh, no! He came up with his own version which, while convoluted, turned out to be very clever.

He called it "interactive life-size" Monopoly and I was completely confused as he went through all the rules with me; they were many and varied.

His 'board' was my living room, dining room and lanai. He'd taken all the property cards and made a maze of them that wound its way from sofa cushions to tables to seat backs to bookshelves and then to the computer. The cards were all placed face up and appeared in the order they appear on the board from "Go" forward to Boardwalk. The Chance and Community Chest cards were included too.

I was not playing as myself but instead as surrogate for the two Webkinz animals I have, Icicle and Buddy. The premise had me rolling the dice and moving for one and then the other, deciding as I landed whether they wanted to purchase or pass on the properties. If they bought, then the card was turned over, face down, indicating it was 'owned'.

If they landed on Income Tax or Free Parking etc... they paid or reaped the rewards just as they would on the board game. He drew these odd spaces on paper himself: go to jail, jail, etc....

Gret was the banker and carried the money around with him following me as I took Icicle then Buddy through the maze and paid for their properties or their debts and, of course, collected $200.00 for passing "Go".

In THIS game time was an element so it was mandatory that I race through the house chasing down the number of spaces indicated by the dice.

It was exhausting but so very clever.

The set-up for the game took most of a morning; we played it in two sessions the sum total of which couldn't have been more than 40 minutes.

Was it worth it? You bet! We laughed, we clapped for Icicle and/or Buddy when they made a coup; we commiserated when they didn't. It took both our brains to remember which properties had, in fact, been purchased by which animal so the right one had to pay up and look big; we agreed we were smart to be doing this together.

I was lucky indeed! I got to participate in Gret's fantasy game and scored big points with him regardless of which Webkinz ultimately won.

That would be the monkey, Buddy.

Or rather, in fact, me!