\u201cCouldn\u2019t you have a simple card game, like Old Maid?\u201d I asked the boy. An 11-year-old cousin. Visiting for a week. He came complete with a couple pairs of underwear, a thirst to take a ghost tour in town and a Star Wars card game that requires a Ph.D. in quantum gaming.<\/p>\n
\u201cI already had Old Maid,\u201d he said. \u201cLets get back to the instructions. Now leave your objective cards face up next to the force cards in the player area \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n
The instructions! Whew. I stared blankly, trying to take it all in. Secretly I was hoping a grizzly bear would crash through the front door, creating a big enough disturbance that I could run away. (Or eat me. I was fine with either one.)<\/p>\n
This was no easy-to-master card game. Not like Blackjack or Go Fish. Those you could learn in a sitting. This came complete with a 32-page instruction booklet. Thirty-two pages? I hadn\u2019t read a book that long all year!
\n<\/p>\n
It was filled with passages like this: \u201cAn objective card with a resource value of two can be used to modify the square root of 78 if the Force is at 3 degrees on a Tuesday, but only if you have amassed enough resource tokens to slay a Banganese Bladeck.\u201d
\nI smiled and nodded my head at the boy. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you understand that part?\u201d he would ask me. <\/p>\n
\u201cOh sure,\u201d I would reply while thinking to myself, \u201cWhat is going on here? Have I been drugged? Where\u2019s that damn grizzly bear!?!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, are you really going to play this?\u201d my daughter asked. \u201cYou look like you\u2019re about to pass out.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was true. My mind was whirling. I felt like I was under some kind of Jedi mind lock. Maybe that was in the instructions. Maybe this kid had already mastered it. Maybe we would have to fight to the death with light sabers! WHY DID I AGREE TO PLAY!?!<\/p>\n
Drool started running down my face. Brain cells were pushed to the breaking point. My daughter contemplated calling 911. I had started mumbling nonsense: \u201cYoda told me to travel to the Dagobah System. Yoda said he wants corn chips.\u201d<\/p>\n
And we hadn\u2019t even finished the instructions. We hadn\u2019t even started playing! <\/p>\n
\u201cSo where are the dice?\u201d I cut in. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t any,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt\u2019s a card game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No dice? No board with pewter characters to move around? Hello panic attack, my old friend. It\u2019s been a long time. <\/p>\n
Then I remembered something about kids: It\u2019s not about how you play the game. It\u2019s that you play the game at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is so excited about this,\u201d his mother told me. There was a huge smile on the boy\u2019s face. \u201cHis father thinks the instructions might be a practical joke on kids. That they don\u2019t really make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaha,\u201d I said, trying to keep my throbbing head upright. \u201cThat would be funny on them.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSo now we\u2019re ready to play,\u201d the boy finally said. \u201cAre you ready?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, sure,\u201d I replied. \u201cNow remind me about those resource cards while I wait on the grizzly bear.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cCouldn\u2019t you have a simple card game, like Old Maid?\u201d I asked the boy. An 11-year-old cousin. Visiting for a week. He came complete with a couple pairs of underwear, a thirst to take a ghost tour in town and a Star Wars card game that requires a Ph.D. in quantum gaming. \u201cI already had Old Maid,\u201d he said. \u201cLets get back to the instructions. Now leave your objective cards face up next to the force cards in the player area \u2026\u201d The instructions! Whew. I stared blankly, trying to take it all in. Secretly I was hoping a grizzly bear would crash through the front door, creating a big enough disturbance that I could run away. (Or eat me. I was fine with either one.) This was no easy-to-master card game. Not like Blackjack or Go Fish. Those you could learn in a sitting. This came complete with a 32-page instruction booklet. Thirty-two pages? I hadn\u2019t read a book that long all year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-nutshells","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1412,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/1412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}