My Fifty-fifth Post

Three things that can make me happy even when I’ve spent 14 hours in an airport:

(1) The unexpected joke the security guy made when he looked at my boarding pass
(2) The guy at Quiznos noticing I was having a bad day
(3) The man sitting across from me who kept pretending he didn’t know his wife and kept introducing himself to her.

So, other than the flight home, my winter vacation has been wonderful so far. My family’s annual Monopoly Championship of the world was held on Christmas Eve. I won last year (which was a miracle—I’m really bad at that game), so I was in charge of the prize for this year. My sister, Sundevil, won my carefully chosen prize of a Suduko-a-day calendar. My little brother, Runner, went bankrupt first and got his name on the “loser-y” trophy for the third year running. He was trying to lose, though, so I don’t feel sorry for him. I think it’s funny that we don’t really keep track of the winner—just the “loser.” That, and the fact that our trophy is a small length of 2x4 with green army men nailed to it.

Speaking of board games, I played my first official game of Scrabble this week. My sisters and I (all of us were in town!) were looking for something to do, and my new sister-in-law (Sil) suggested Scrabble. Now, my family has never really been into Scrabble and none of us really knew how to play except Sil, so it was an interesting game. I got very frustrated when I had the most perfectly placed, high scoring word in the entire game, but it was disqualified for being a proper noun. Who says Syria’s not in the dictionary? But it was good fun anyway.

Heh. Being around my family during the holidays makes everything seem hilarious. Let me share a few stories to illustrate my point. Let me start by saying that Sundevil and I share a fondness for zebras, dating back to a strange inside joke from our teen years. Over time, we have continued this joke mainly in the form of stealing zebra-themed things from my mom’s stash of grandkids toys (the two zebras from the Noah’s Ark set, the two ‘Z is for zebra’ blocks from the ABC building blocks, etc.) and smuggling them off to our respective apartments. This year my mom had purchased a toy nativity scene for my nieces and nephew to play with. Sundevil and I were very disappointed to see that there were no zebras in the set, and the following conversation took place:

Sundevil: Hey! There are no zebras!
Me: Yeah! How come there aren’t any zebras?
Sundevil: He loved zebras! I don’t think He would have consented to being born if there were no zebras present.
Me: Yeah, He totally loves zebras.
Faybe (my younger sister, entering the room) : Who loves zebras?
Sundevil: The Baby Jesus, of course.

Now you can’t tell me that isn’t funny.

Another conversation, held during the Monopoly game between Sundevil and Char, my other younger brother:

Char (after being sent to jail for the third time): So are you gonna give me your “Get Out of Jail Free” card?
Sundevil: I’ll give it to you for $100.
Char: Really? Yeah, okay!
Sundevil: But you can just pay $50 to get out of jail.
Char: Yeah, but with the card, it’s free!

Hee.

I love my family!