Why Monopoly is an annoying game

There. I've admitted it to the world. Let me say it again.

I hate Monopoly.

It's not that it's immoral, although certainly some people play it in an inconsiderate, bloodthirsty, cruel fashion. It's not that it's unsafe, although certainly playing it with some people raises my blood pressure to a high degree and makes my lungs close up in panic. It's not that that I always lose, although I have certainly played for hours on end only to be bankrupted and then forced to play for another hour so I could be thoroughly indebted to my opponent.

It's just that I hate it.

Monopoly has always seemed to me to be cutthroat -- mine. Even as an adult, all of a sudden, niceness and sweetness get suspended, and you find yourself playing a game with someone who you thought liked you, but now seems to keep playing with the single goal of making you miserable. And then this game, that you're losing, goes on for hours on end. Long after the rules say the game is supposed to end, you're still playing...

I hate Monopoly.

Playing Monopoly is long and boring and torturous. I'm not sure if everyone rigs the deck, or if I just have bad luck. But once -- just once -- I'd like to land on Boardwalk, when there isn't someone else's hotel on it. (I mean, really? Raising the rent on Boardwalk for a stupid little plastic building that even I couldn't fit into?) I'd like to pass "Go" and get $200, not land on the "Go to Jail" square every time I go around the board. I'd like to buy up the railroads before someone else does, and actually get a "Monopoly."

I hate Monopoly. In fact, I think I'll stick with games like Scattergories, Apples to Apples, and cards, where you have fun even if you are losing. These are games that do not take four hours to play, that do not not have a jail cell on the board small enough to squish even the squishiest cotton, and that increase brain power, not bloodthirsty greed.

If you choose to play Monopoly, very well, but don't ask me to bail you out of jail.

With love from an absolute doll,

Erin Joy