by Robin Khalar

Created on: February 24, 2008

Sunday's are traditionally know as the day of rest, but in our house, this is a day of challenges, adventures, and time tested strategies. Anyone caught resting, may be sunk by a torpedo, outwitted by a wordsmith, or captured by a crowned checker. Board games have been a staple in our family for as long as I remember, but the term friendly game is as foreign as pickle juice on ice cream.

Our day begins shortly after mom has produced a breakfast fit for kings and queens, and the servants that would be my siblings and I, clean the kitchen. Our bellies are so full; we will not need sustenance until dinnertime. Once the room resembles a kitchen, instead of a room destructed by a hurricane, the person with the highest percentile of wins from the previous week picks the first game from a stack of thirty titles. We all put on our game faces, and the challenges begin.

Kayla the reining champion and the youngest of the brood ironically chooses checkers. A little known fact about checkers is that it dates back around 3000 B.C., although back then, the game was not called checkers, it's title was "Draughts" in Great Britain, "Alquerque" in Egypt. Unfortunately, for Kayla, her game selection stopped there, I won this round and chose Trivial Pursuit.

Our game play treachery does not go without some fairness; therefore, our Trivial Pursuit game is the Disney version. This gives Kayla a huge advantage over mom and dad, since she owns every Disney title known to man. Trivial Pursuit has been around for a mere 25 years, but is still a favorite with historians, philosophers, and the general populace who know a lot of stuff about nothing. The latter is the category that I fall under, but today it appeared as though I lived in a cave all of my life. You guessed it; I lost to dad of all people.

As the lunch hour has come and gone, we all agreed that this would be the last game of the day. After my mind's eye literally watched Kayla grow old before me, dad finally decided on the game of Sorry. Even though this classic game requires both luck and strategy, Dad controlled neither, succumbing to Kayla's relentless efforts to keep him in home base for the entire length of the game.

Kayla still reins over the Sunday Board Game Kingdom; but the natives are already plotting an uprising. My strategy is to watch as many Disney movies as I can get my hands on, while mom is content on believing that we are all winners in this family. Dad on the other hand, acts as if his loss does not bother him. Nevertheless, I know that as he walks out the garage door, he will be taking his anger out on the lawn.

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