a new era of Monopoly

So - this has nothing to do with Switzerland, except for the fact that if we had been at home, we would have had a TV and might not have had to find other ways to entertain ourselves. See, we seem to have had bad luck with our electricity conversion: first blew the cable converter (actual smoke came out) by plugging things in the wrong order (we actually still don't know what we did wrong, as we thought we understood electricity but obviously don't). Two weeks later, for no apparent reason, our TV then stops working as well. So now we are here with no TV, no videos, so what do we do...

Someone had the bright idea to bring out the board games, and we played Monopoly.

Now I have not played Monopoly in years - might be decades. Last I remember playing Monopoly was in high school at Greg Flynn's house with Bob Miller and possibly Keith Porter - up until 5 am making alliances and destroying people. I remember the game being long, and you had to make the right alliances or you were out fast.

So what surprised me is how my boys, age 9 and 7, could pick up the rules so fast and quickly understand concepts like mortgages and rent. Of course mom and dad helped a little with the strategy, and made deals happen in their best interest (to the point that they always won) but after a few games they started getting that, too. They have become obsessed - who can play Monopoly every night?

The other funny thing is that we actually read the rules, and again it could be time, but I don't remember half these rules: three doubles and you go to jail? You can only borrow money from the bank? I was just reading an opinion piece by Jon Carroll of the SF Chronicle where he discusses the concept of Monopoly "house rules" - and now, after reading the real rules, realize that most of our alliance making and deals that I had assumed were how the game was played was actually our version of the game. What is even funnier is how quickly "house rules" become part of the game - one of our visitors played with the boys (as we were exhausted after game 7 in one week) and he introduced a "house rule" of getting $500 every time you landed on Free Parking - and the kids felt so cool - like it was their personal game.

Already the kids are developing their Monopoly "norms": Karl hides his money so know one can know what he has; Bennett loves to make the stacks of money in order for everyone at the beginning of the game, and during the game surrounds his stack with all his properties in a sort of fortress formation. It is also great to play with Eric - who grew up with a whole other set of strategies and house rules - way more aggressive than I remember, and truthfully he hasn't won yet...

So if you haven't played in a while, or thought your kids were too young to play, think of dusting off the game and play one night. Would be curious to know your "house rules"...