Ready or Not – Don’t Come to a Battle of Wits Unarmed
Some people think that if they raise their voice at me, I’m going to bend to their will. They mistake my calm demeanor as an opportunity to beat me with volume.
The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.
-Jodi Picoult
Some people when met with an obstacle decide that they will rage their way through it. I am not an obstacle, regardless of how someone feels about me. I pick my battles, but don’t push me bitch.
The thing is, I have a bunch of random knowledge, so playing games with me can be frustrating if you are a sore loser. Chances are good that I might win.
Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, I grew up watching those shows with my mother. I read a lot. I am curious, and when Google became a verb, I can lose myself down rabbit holes seeking answers to questions I didn’t even know I had. There is no rhyme or reason to what I might remember.
The ex used to HATE playing Trivial Pursuit, he would claim I cheated by memorizing the answers, like it was patently impossible for me to just know stuff. Then he refused to play me at Scrabble because he said it was not fair that I had such a large vocabulary, and that it was my fault for reading so much.
Now that I have friends who are willing to rise to the challenge of pitting themselves against my brain, I will risk social distancing to gather in a small (aka selective) group to play. This particular evening we were playing a movie/tv trivia game.
One of the selective group is this woman friend who is passive aggressively avoiding me, possibly due to workplace related jealousy.
I was, however, surprised by how determined she became that I should not win this game, to the point of getting loud and arguing that I should be disqualified. Literally trying to make up rules just because she thought I shouldn’t be allowed to continue playing my turn.
I didn’t win the Good Sportsmanship Award in 5th grade, beating out the popular boy contenders, for no reason.
I don’t cheat. If I am wrong, I will admit it and take my loss. However, I was not wrong in this case, and this petty bitch was trying to say that I should be skipped over my turn just because she thought it was only fair.
Oh, but it was also fair when we let her have the point after someone else blurted out the right answer to her question, even though she didn’t know the answer.
The other 4 players (all men, by the way) agreed that I was not wrong and should be allowed to play my turn. They kept pointing out that it was still my turn and that there was no rule for skipping people.
Yet she just kept getting louder and louder. Eventually we had to step by step walk her through the last play to show how she was wrong and that she just couldn’t make up a rule just so I wouldn’t get to play and potentially win.
Her behavior was absolute shit, and after that round finished, she decided it was time for her to go home.
Yeah go home. Shit. It’s a fucking BOARD GAME.
I wish I could say I have never been in a situation where people were so strongly opposed to me that they would make up rules, or create obstacles just to keep me from getting ahead. But we all know that shit is not true.
That’s my life. It is only a matter of time until someone decides that I am the enemy and starts plotting against me.
