Monopoly Kids

I loved Monopoly as a kid. I had three other friends who did too. We played a lot. We cheated a lot. Cheating was an understood part of the game. If you forgot to ask for your money before the dice were rolled, tough luck. We would stash money under our legs or rear ends to hide our wealth, then spring the trap on an unsuspecting victim. Alliances made and broken was not something coined by Survivor. And finding someone who would be banker was never hard. We were a bunch of embezzling, Fortune 500 nightmares. Ah, such fun.



Now I'm a sobered-up adult and I'm delighted to be playing with kids again--mine. So far, I've found them to be upright players of the potentially shiester-ridden game. I taught them from the rules, crazy me. In doing so, I learned a lot about how far I had wandered from the truth, then repenting, have enjoyed the clean life. Did you know that you have to add 10% to the mortgage price to reclaim a property?

On top of all the good that it has been for me, it has been a great opportunity to apply or learn lots of math, reasoning and strategy for my kids. They're hooked. I love having two kids who can sit down to play a game with a bit of strategy.

And I swear that I've mended my ways. I was even so generous to Shakespeare when he wanted to buy Boardwalk from me for $4000. I let him. I don't understand how he went bankrupt so quickly after that.