Will ? for Monopoly Game Pieces

I was not playing the Albertson’s Monopoly win-everything-no-one-percenter-needs-or-wants game until a neighbor bestowed a pile of game pieces on me.

“Something for the kids to do on a rainy day,” she said, handing me a manila envelope bursting with little squares and shards a bit larger than New Year’s Eve confetti. [If I used Ticker Tape for a metaphor, would anyone know what I meant?]

Rain isn’t in the forecast. This is California! So, last night, just after I gathered stuff needed to file my taxes before April 15  – another activity no one-percenter has to do as many don’t pay 35%  taxes anyway – I sorted, picked, and licked and prayed that the pieces would remain on the board, if I won.

It’s terrifying to think that on the way to verify my winning board, a gust of wind would blow the piece off into oncoming traffic, and I would die after being run over by a Maserati.

What could I do with one million? Undaunted by the fact that the IRS would chomp on a good portion of it, I hunkered down.

Shards. Shards. My Kingdom for Two Shards

I’m not the only human hunched over a first-base size board impaled by black-and-white name-brand shards clinging on squares promising $5,000 Cash, Red Box rentals, Jet Skis or  a million greenback dollars! Someone else might have the missing piece!

Check out the site. More trading than on the floor of the NYSE. I’m not the only one. Thousands of hopefuls need just a one or two for the Big One Million: 613C, 618H. What am I willing to do for this? Do a book report on Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece? That would be too easy.

The Price of Fortune

This is not an R-rated blog. Use your imagination. Send me the where and when, and what. Of course, I’ll have to see your 613C 618H before I make a move.

It would probably be easier to snag a 90-year-old geezer [without grandchildren] on a Republican dating site. Cancel that.

Settling Down

All right. If you don’t have 613C or 618H, I’ll settle for I541C, the $10 Grocery Gift Card. Please, do NOT offer me Q573C, the $200 Family Picnic.

It would probably rain on the day we headed to the park.

 

 

 

Walking on Beaches at Night with Men.

J and T had dinner on the pier. J remembered that it was not in her best interest to order capellini pomodoro, so she ordered the clam-chowder-sour-dough bowl and vowed that if she had to share the oyster crackers, she would. T had the rib eye, creamed spinach and, when offered the basket of warm rolls, refused. The conversation ranged from the discovery that Einstein was right ­– relativity is real – to the proper way to fold a fitted bed sheet – Martha Stewart’s version is difficult for a dyslexic to get past step one.

After the Lava cake and some mighty espresso, the two ventured down to the sand. The moon was a slice short of full; seagulls were foraging for the buried remnants of PBandJ sandwiches on organic wheat bread and Dorito specks. J and T stepped over abandoned buckets then moved closer to the moveable line between dry and wet.

J stepped on a plastic rake, causing her to lose her balance [all those Pilates classes didn’t help at all] and fall on the knee-from-hell. Then, as if it had been waiting for her, a wave aimed its foamy fingers at her and struck with such force that her glasses sprang off her head.

T tried to help, but not if his Gucci 1953 horsebit crocodile loafers would be baptized by a primal sea. He waited until the water drew back, grasped J’s hand and lifted her out of the sand.

“My glasses. Can you see them?”

T was at a loss. Had she been wearing glasses? He hadn’t noticed.

J vowed that never again would she walk on the beach in the moonlight, after dinner, with a man on the first date.

She would consider lunch.

Photo: Myra Alex

What’s Your IGK?

Other people have bucket lists. I have an IGK.

I Gotta Know.

I have no desire to parachute into Machu Picchu, race gondolas, dig for jade in upper Mongolia, visit Fort Knox, or kiss Paul McCartney.

On the McCarney note, I did something better: kissed a sting ray in Grand Cayman. Legend says that nothing bad can happen to me for seven years because I sticky lipped the ray. Rayette, as it was a female. I doubt that would have happened I’d smooched McCartney. I’ll never know. No worries.

Which brings me to what I do want to know. Why planes don’t fly backward. How a thermos knows to keep soup hot, not cold. Why internal combustion can’t work with water instead of ooze from Cretaceous dinosaur and fern landfills.

Why wallpaper? If a goldfish is by itself in a bowl, does it get lonely? If you dig deep enough in the desert, will you find water?

I have many more on my list. I forgot where I put it, though.

What’s Your IGK?

Be good to someone today. You don’t know what’s happening to them.

I’ve done it hundreds of times. Seen a couple, walking hand-in-hand through the park, the man leaning over to speak into the ear of the woman, enjoying each other’s company.

 

I’ve been jealous.

 

I’ve seen a woman in Needless-Markup (you know, that place with the butterfly logo and the wonderful aroma of priceless perfume), her arms filled with shopping bags, and a stunning leather-stud-encrusted handbag (pocket book for you East Coast folks) draped over her shoulder.

 

I’ve been jealous.

 

What’s the point?

 

The couple I saw walking hand-in-hand through the park, in conversation? The man has beaten this woman, she had run out of the apartment but he caught her, and now was leading her back to the house, whispering that if she ran away again, she would never see her daughter.

 

The woman shopping in Needless-Markup? Addicted to shopping and not paying for half of her items. She has all the money a person could wish for, riches galore, but her husband has three mistresses in Cannes and has consistently asked for a divorce.

 

I shall always be grateful that I do not have to power to switch places with someone I see who might be a bit richer, thinner, happier or more in love than I am.

 

Rather I am grateful for what I have inside that makes me, me.

 

I am grateful that I have the power to change myself.