Last week, The Nerd and I ventured to Richmond for my fabulous family Thanksgiving. This is one glorious weekend filled with wine, board games, eating, wine, books and some wine (with some Jameson for the men). Which roughly translates to a lot of drunken yelling over board games while snacking on Thanksgiving leftovers every evening. While this is an environment that I thrive in, it is most definitely not the natural habitat of The Nerd. He does love board games, but these are the ones he would never take a second glance at (read: Pictionary & Taboo vs Settlers of Catan & Diplomacy). So I knew that he would not be loving our game nights, but figured he would be okay playing non-thought provoking games with lesser minds for a few days. There was just one teensy, tiny little thing I forgot to factor in: THE RULES. As you might guess, when you have fifteen drunken people sitting around a table screaming about catch-phrase, the rules are not *quite* top of mind. People use their hands, guess for the other team, switch players in the middle, etc. It’s a bit of a madhouse. Well, this behavior rendered The Nerd momentarily speechless. Have no fear, he was back to himself rather quickly and immediately demanding to know what rules we had set in place for the game. After a moment of stunned silence by my somewhat intoxicated family the conversation went something like this:
FAMILY: “Oh, don’t worry about the rules, we just play to have fun.”
THE NERD: “You can’t have fun without any rules.”
FAMILY: “Yes you can, jut relax and enjoy it.”
THE NERD: “Oh really? Well let’s say I just move my character to the end of the board and declare myself the winner.”
FAMILY: “Well… you can’t do that.”
THE NERD: “Because THE RULES say I can’t. Rules are necessary for an enjoyable game. Maybe next time we play catch-phrase I’ll just tell my team what the word is and pass it on.”
FAMILY: “But that wouldn’t be any fun.”
THE NERD: “EXACTLY! A game is only fun to the extent that there are rules.”
What could anyone say to that? Of course we wanted some rules. We just realized no amount of yelling would prevent my aunt from using her hands in catch-phrase and we didn’t care if people switched teams mid-game. So everyone mumbled in agreement and tried to follow the rules for a few minutes. But our lack of dedication meant that all promises of rule-following were forgotten within five minutes and all was back to normal. The Nerd, flabbergasted as he was, put on a good face and continued to play. But I bet he never missed his friends and a game of Diplomacy more.
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