Chapter Sixteen: Candyland in Vegas​​​

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     As the older sibling, my sister typically chose the games we played. Despite my protests, Jean would invariably pick Monopoly, a pastime responsible for ruining more friendships, family relationships, and marriages than any violent video game ever produced.

 

     By my count, my sister and I started one thousand two hundred fifty-four games of monopoly. We finished precisely two, both after quick purchases of Boardwalk and Park Place along with some other exceptionally lucky rolls of the dice. As with most Monopoly games, our other contests ended with the board thrown to the floor; the pieces spread far and wide, only to be found days later by my mother as she vacuumed our front room carpet.

 

     Our family monopoly games mercifully ceased as my sister and I grew older, replaced by strategy-focused endeavors like poker and backgammon. Eventually, those succumbed to non-game interests – girls for me, boys for Jean, and eventually grown-up jobs.

 

     As an adult, I wasn’t entirely done playing Monopoly. In a rare epiphany of the sort normally requiring hard liquor, my marketing VP decided Monopoly was the perfect activity for a team-building exercise held at a local hotel. The resulting mayhem ended six hours into the session after the hotel manager called the police, an action he felt necessary after two of my co-workers began throwing Monopoly money, game tokens, and Chance cards out of the hotel’s second-story window.

 

     Clearly not cut out for the rigors of hospital work, two participants tendered their resignations after that day; both letters were accepted after signed NDAs. All things considered, it was the typical outcome of most team-building exercises in mid to large-level organizations, particularly those held next door to a hotel bar.

 

     Unless you count juice cups, there was no drinking when I played board games with my children. In a gesture perhaps motivated by revenge, my oldest sister had given Emily the game of Candyland for her sixth birthday. The game had sat unopened since, an oversight I stupidly decided to rectify one rainy afternoon in July.

 

     Recommended for ages three and up, Candyland was perfect for young children as it required no reading skills whatsoever. Players twirled a spinner that ended up pointing to a color. Once the spinner stopped, you simply moved to the next space on the Candyland board marked in the same color. The first person to the end of the board wins the game.

 

     While great for children, Candyland’s suitability for grown-ups was another matter. As an adult, my sister confessed she could never get through a game with her children without nodding off, her Candyland narcolepsy guaranteeing she would never win. For my hyper-competitive sister, that was an outcome considerably less than optimal.

 

     Unlike Jean, winning was the last thing on my mind when I pulled the game from Emily’s closet. The kids were bored and getting on each other’s nerves while I had a project due - a website for a small career counseling company.

I had foolishly promised I could get the site done in five days.  We were now on week two, and my clients’ patience kept getting shorter even as their revisions pushed the project’s completion further out. I needed a break, and I needed to misdirect the kids. What better than a game requiring only simple color identification? 

 

     As it turned out, there were a lot of things better - Hara-kiri being one. For those who never played Candyland, the game is about finding King Kandy, the lost king of Candy Land. Therein stood our first challenge. A six-year-old feminist who worshipped unicorns and baby dolls, my daughter had no tolerance for the obvious gender disparity.

 

     “Why is there no Queen Kandy?”

 

     Usually, I came prepared with a good story - this was not one of those times. “I have no clue. Maybe she’s off in the castle with Baby Kandy.”  I could hardly have said worse.

 

     “Why doesn’t the King take care of Baby Kandy.”

 

     “I truthfully have no idea. That was more of a guess than anything else.”

 

     Emily just shook her head. Not sure what to do next, I opened the board. Not willing to leave well enough alone, I chose to open my mouth once again.

 

     “Look,” I said, pointing to the board, “There’s Princess Lolly.”

 

     “Will she be the king when King Kandy dies?”

 

     “I think she’d be the queen, but I’m not familiar with the Candyland line of succession. Let’s play, and maybe we’ll figure it out.”

 

     In my naivete, I thought that was possible.  Then Jack scanned the board.

 

     “What’s that big pile of poop?”

 

     While still focused on elevating Princess Lolly, Emily managed a brief laugh at her brother’s bathroom reference. I looked where Jack was pointing and saw the reason for his confusion. “That’s not poop; that’s Gloppy. He’s made of chocolate.”

 

     “Gloppy poop?”

 

     “Not Gloppy poop, just Gloppy. See his smile?  That means he’s one of the good guys.”

 

     “You said poop was good when I do it in the toilet.”

 

     “It most definitely is good, but Gloppy is not made of poop. This is Candyland. He looks that way because he lives in a chocolate swamp.”

 

     “I think he lives in a toilet. I like Gloppy poop.”

 

     I considered an Advil run, but Jack finally moved away from his Gloppy fixation. In the meantime, Emily had discovered Lord Licorice, the famed villain of Candyland. Pointing to LL, my daughter had another question.

 

     “Is he the bad guy?  Why is he the bad guy?”

 

     “If I remember my Candyland lore, Lord Licorice tries to turn everyone into licorice.”

 

     “I like licorice. Why is that bad?”

 

     I tried my best kid logic. “Imagine if someone turned you into licorice. You’d be all bendy. With no bones, you wouldn’t be able to run or play games. Your brother might even run out of his well-known self-control and chew off one of your arms. If you land on a licorice space in the game, you lose your next turn.”

 

     Emily looked at Jack accusingly, suddenly worried about the integrity of her limbs. Her brother stared right back, wondering if his sister might, indeed, someday turn to licorice. Before a fight developed, I diverted their attention back to the game. Knowing the process would last at least thirty minutes otherwise, I handed out the game pieces without allowing the kids the opportunity to choose.

 

     Jack went first. The color spinner ended at red, and I directed Jack to the next red space. He moved his token forward, unfortunately, to the wrong color. Cutting off his sister in mid-complaint, I tried some instruction.

 

     “That’s not a red space, Jack. You moved to green.”  Pointing, I said, “The red space is over here.”

 

     My son was defiant. Pointing to the green space – his token’s current residence – he declared, “You said red. This is red.”

 

     Emily was growing frustrated, but I waved her into silence. Months ago, I had begun wondering if Jack was color-blind, a suspicion that grew more certain as I now asked Jack about the other colors on the board. If true, it was far from the worse news. Alma’s father had the same affliction, and he managed just fine. His wife picked out his clothes every morning, though knowing Alma’s mother, she probably would have done that anyway.

 

     Alma and I would develop a strategy for Jack after she got home. In the meantime, we could make this work, even in Candyland. Grabbing a die from our old Yahtzee game, I announced a new way of playing.  

 

     Jack knew his numbers from one through ten, and Emily had learned far more. All we would require for my Candyland version were numbers one through six. The game would need to be fun, however, or both kids would wonder about the sudden change.

 

     Displaying the die, I told my children we would learn how to gamble. The concept was not unknown to Jack and Emily. The previous week, they had watched Plankton and Mr. Krabs engage in a gambling duel over SpongeBob’s employment contract, an episode presenting any number of labor law violations while skirting the edge of human trafficking. Today it worked to my advantage, however, and for that, I was grateful.

 

     Jack’s color-identification issues now forgotten, the kids were intrigued by my proposal. I needed something we could bet, and for that, I used Skittles. Now their interest had truly deepened.

 

     “This new game is called Candyland in Vegas.”

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     I would need to re-think that name before their mom arrived home, but it would do for now.

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     “We each put a Skittle in the center of the board before every turn. Whoever rolls the higher number gets the Skittles in the center and moves their token that same number of spaces. The player who reaches the end first gets to keep their Skittles and gets five from every other player’s stash. If that player doesn’t have five left to give, he or she can buy more Skittles from the bank, five for a penny. You each have some cash from your respective birthdays, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

 

     The game would never replace Blackjack, but it would do for today. Tighter with his money than Scrooge McDuck, Jack had an issue with the buy-back requirement.

 

     “My pennies are precious.”

I

     was raising a character from Lord of the Rings. Desperate, I appealed to his gambling side.

 

     “You need to think of the game more positively - this will give you a chance to increase your Skittles stash.”

 

     Jack considered my logic and finally saw its wisdom. An hour after we opened the box, the game was finally on.

Candyland in Vegas proved a popular game, though a dispute arose over the value of individual colored Skittles. Emily preferred red, while Jack liked green or whatever he considered to be green. While demolishing the game’s color-matching aspect, we kept most other rules, including the loss of a turn at a licorice space. Being the adult, I kept track of the Skittles bank, my less-than-trusting children eying my every move.

 

     Regarding the competition itself, I took the early lead based on three straight sixes in the game’s early stages. Two licorice spaces then destroyed my momentum, with Jack and Emily taking turns in front. A photo finish was inevitable, and Jack ended up victorious with a last-roll six, passing Emily when she was only two spaces from victory.

Competitive but fair, Emily handed Jack his game-winning Skittles without complaint. Jack, however, had other ideas.

 

     “I don’t even like Skittles that much anymore. I want a penny.”

 

     I looked at Emily, a girl who worshipped Skittles, and she merely shrugged. Running upstairs, Emily grabbed a penny from her bank and gave it to Jack. I added a penny from my pocket, and my son was now a rich man. Back in his room, Jack placed his newfound loot in whatever Fort Knox-like structure he deemed appropriate for its safety. As for Emily, she got to keep all the Skittles she won during the game, even the five she would have otherwise given to Jack. For my children, life was good.

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     Not so much with Alma. The kids told her about the game as soon as she got home. Her wide-eyed look said it all, but I decided to wait until the kids were in bed before letting her know about Jack’s color blindness. Before I had the opportunity, Alma approached me, direct as always.    

 

     “I had my reasons, and I didn’t want to cover them in front of Jack and Emily.”  I then told her what I had discovered about Jack’s vision, including his inability to distinguish between red and green.

 

     “That would explain the green Santa I hung on our fridge last Christmas, not to mention the red tree.” 

 

     “I didn’t want to use the word ‘blind’ in front of Jack and Emily, so I figured I would misdirect them with a different version of the game. When you’re ready, we can sit down with both kids and run through what’s really going on.”

 

     Returning to my choice of pastimes, Alma said, “I’ll give you Candyland in Vegas, but let’s try to avoid playing it again. Eventually, one of the kids will ask grandma or grandpa to play, and I’m not sure I want to be around when that happens.”

 

     “Are you sure?  There’s a lot to be said for Candyland in Vegas. Later on, I’ll show you the adult version.”

 

     Alma laughed. I wasn’t sure if it was a good laugh or a “don’t get your hopes up” laugh, but at least I was out of hot water.

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     “I should mention, tomorrow, I was going to teach the kids a more true-to-life version of Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”

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     “As long as you don’t tell me there’s an adult version.”