playing Monopoly with dad

The spring my brother introduced his fiance to his family, he invited her to play a game of Monopoly with the family. Behind her back, my brother whispered to my sister, “Hsst. Hsst, sis.”
“What?” she leaned over to hear.
“Play it really fast,” he whispered.
Fast in our family means after one player throws a dice and catches a glimpse of the total number of squares he can move, the next person scoops up the dice and starts his turn while the first player moves forward. Money is exchanged, property purchased and claims on rental are all made within seconds. There is no time to think, to look, to quibble, let alone learn how to play the game. You just do it.
I know how to play that sort of game – at least I used to know how to play it. I grew up paying Monopoly. My brothers, sisters and I played Monopoly on a regular basis. My diary as a fifth and sixth grader reads, “we began playing Monopoly tonight.”
Days later I recorded, “we finished the Monopoly game.” Because our bedtime was 9 p.m. and we had to do homework, practice musical instruments and do chores first. Monopoly games lasted for days on end.
We began playing Monopoly almost before we could count out the number of dots on the top side of the dice. For yeas, it was Dad’s favorite game.
My mom played Monopoly with him when they were first married. But his wheeling and dealing as the game advanced were too much for her.
As her five children grew older, she shoved away from the gaming table and stepped into the kitchen to quarter apples, make popcorn and not-quite-stiff-enough fudge.
The youngest player at the table had the Dad advantage. As I remember it, my Dad teamed up with my littlest brother for years just because he was too little to play a businesslike game of Monopoly.
They were an indomitable team.
I still feel the misery of the night the two of them owned all the green properties. Every time I landed on a green property my pip squeak little brother proudly announced, as if I didn’t know by the fifth time, “That will be one thousand, two hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
Of course, he and ad won that game.
The only time I remember winning was when my older brother, my sisters and I played during a prolonged visit at my grandmother’s place. I owned all the orange properties, invested in hotels and secretly exalted as I collected all that rent money.
Then I married and joined Mom in the kitchen while my children played Monopoly with grandpa. For my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary my husband designed and I stitched a quilt modeled after the Monopoly board, substituting the names of the many placed my parents lived for every square from Mediterranean Avenue to Boardwalk.
It took a lot more time to applique and embroider that quilt than it ever took to play Monopoly, but I never had to pay rent and there was no way I could lose.