Let the games began already

In the mornings, to get my brain going, I drink coffee. And I play games. In fact, I don't read the paper until at least lunch, sometimes supper, and occasionaly not at all. For this tidbit of information I charge you nothing because, well, because you're getting what you paid for it. Nothing.

But it does allow a nice segue into the game playing part of my morning confession. I usually play at least two games of Scrabble. I set one computer opponent to semi-genius and one computer opponent to doofus. Scrabble really works your head, especially when you have six vowels and one consonant or vice versa with six consonants and only one vowel.

I figure a little competition in the mornings will get the ol' neurons firing. Does it work? I guess. Is it fail proof? No. But what is? I think it is fail resistant, though. To paraphrase a famous line from, um, somebody famous, "I think, therefore I am...awake."

I also play a game or two (or three) each of a couple of other games. For instance this morning I also played 3 games of Canasta and two of Cribbage. Sometimes it'll be Pinochle, Yahtzee, Battleship, Backgammon, Spades, Hearts, Tarot or Euchre. I really like Euchre.

I like Tarot, too, but few people realize it is actually a card game. Witches and mediums have kinda shanghaied the common perception of Tarot, much like the hate mongers stole the battle flag of my ancestors. Anyway, Tarot has a trump suit and it's a bidding game where you attempt to earn points. I find it exceedingly difficult, but by the same token, why play a game if there is no challenge? I know. Exactly.

I found a place in a flea market down in Sarasota that had a large selection of Tarot cards. I thought to buy some so I could play against live people instead of always the computer.

However, I could not get the High Priestess Voodoo Flea Market Queen to understand me. I wanted to see a deck to make sure all of the cards I needed to play were actually in the deck. I didn't know because I'd never bought any before.

She kept showing me a flip chart of what the various pictures on the cards were. Although I told her repeatedly that the drawings were only of a passing concern to me, but the number of cards, DANGIT WOMAN...THE NUMBER OF CARDS, is what I needed to know. She was really pissing me off as she assumed that affected tone of someone talking down to an unenlightened one.

I keep thinking to myself, "Behind the black lipstick, incense, and spooky "music", you're still just a trailer park cracker of limited life experience. Don't you talk down to me. At least I know enough to know the cards were designed for playing a game. In fact, wench, I even know how to play it." Instead, I just looked at her like she needed to get a clue, turned around and left her shop, allowing her to return to gliding around her store infatuating all the teenage boys who seemed to be her main customer/fan base.

Well, that's it.

Or is it?

Yeah, it is. Unless you want to hear how some days I love having cats and some days I really don't. Nah, I didn't think so.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?, out
Ramblin' Ed