Trash Talk...Beatty Style

So we play games at our house. A lot of Uno. Sometimes Parcheesi or Trouble (Star Wars Trouble with the beeping R2D2... yeah, we're THAT family - we have talking Battleship, too - neener, neener) and whatever else the girls want to play. Anyway, we taught them a card game called Hand and Foot. Actually, we taught them a variation of a variation of the game that we were taught by someone who probably didn't fully have a grasp on the rules. But it's how we play it.***

At some point during a game the Beatty trash talk starts. Someone (usually Lori or I) will realize they are losing and look to see who is winning and say, "You're winning because you're a cheater." Or, like last night in Hand and Foot, I said to Lori, "Of course you're winning, you're keeping score and whoever keeps score always wins. Cheater." Now, you can't hear tone on a blog post, I get that. No one ever walks away from the table in tears. It's just part of the banter of the game. It happens almost every time. But nobody ever means it.

And when some "cheating" really happens - you know, somebody accidently****** moves extra spaces or puts a Jack in a pile of cards thinking it was a Joker - nobody leaves the table in tears, in fact...nobody uses the word cheat then. Now I don't know what the girls do when they're with their friends and playing games and this happens, but at home it's just, "It's okay.  It was a mistake."

So for all the Trash Talk Beatty Style (and we have our silly moments), the play's the thing.  The time at the table is what matters.  It's a legacy from my family.  We sat around playing card games of all kinds - from poker to rummy to...what was it called, "Shanghai Rummy"*******  Pineochle, uh... Penichole...um... Pinochle (what a stupid word) and Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit (by the time I was a teenager I could give my dad a good run for his money - though he still won probably 2 out of 3 times...won't be long before the girls are taking me to the Trivial cleaners...or...well, you know what I mean) and on and on.

I don't remember any single time we played anything.  But we played.  And I'm trying to pass that on to the girls. Playing.  Together.  It's about Face Time.

Oh, and Trash Talk...





*** Yeah, when we play Hand and Foot with people who know the "RIGHT" way to play it, we smile and listen patiently as they explain to us all the things we do wrong, we play it the "right" way with them, then when we come home we forgot all about that stupid wrong way they showed us and play it the REAL right way again
***** So....accidently isn't a word?  Why is there a red line under it?  What the heck?
******* I think this is now a game called Phase 10 - but we played it with *gasp* ordinary cards back in the day....