The die is cast

Breakfast was almost over, but the smell of bacon and eggs hung in the air. It mixed with the sweetness of maple syrup and a second course of waffles that its cook had dealt like cards toward any newly vacated plates. 

This breakfast bonanza is as much of an indicator of our typical vacation as the wall-to-wall humidity and the games that have piled up at the end of the table.

I said no thank you by selecting one of the five decks of cards and started to line up seven little stacks in front of me. My lips move silently as I count: One up, Two down, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven … Two up, Three down, Four, Five, Six, Seven …

On occasion, the cards stick together as I deal them out or as I try to shuffle to the third one to reveal my next play. Ordinarily, this would cause some perturbation, but the gift of being in proximity to sea air is something one really shouldn't grouse about.

Hardship, it is not. 

Also, I figure, I’ll use the adhesions to apply little cheats until it becomes evident that I will not win the game of solitaire this round.

I scoop the cards and start again.

I will play until someone asks to gets dealt in and we parlay into a new game.

This is the ritual in the dwindling days of a holiday: table games are usually the things we can all agree on as a family as we try to pass the time until the next meal.

Dominos used to be favored. It was an easy game to learn and  satisfying to handle tiles, hiding them from the gaze of opponents or clicking them noisily, as we awaited our next turns.

Lets play Dominos?

Anyone?

Anyone? …

Somehow it lost its allure.

Each game has had a season of play and a season of retirement: Go Fish, Rummy, Hearts, Crazy 8s, Kings in the Corner, and Euchre. When the season ends, we can't rest assured that we won't outgrow it, or that our grasp of rules will remain. 

We know we will never be ready for Bridge.

This year, we’ve just rolled the dice.

“We are playing Yahtzee,” says the girl after she clears the table of breakfast dishes.

The game is her favorite and consists of five dice, a printed piece of paper that helps you keep track of your rolls, and a plastic cup that MUST generate the most noise possible as players shake and dump the numbered cubes onto the table.

The last one, of course, makes for the most excitement. Bonus points awarded to the adult who requires headache remedy before the final scores are tallied.

Luck has everything to do with it, but we still employ strategies.

I go for the “specialty” rolls first: The Straights, the Full Houses, and the Threes and Fours-of-a-Kind. I like to get them out of the way so I can relax in the idea of just rolling for Yahtzees that never materialize.

My daughter focuses on the top-tier rolls: The Ones and Twos, she admits are throwaways, but the Fives and Sixes can set you up for a bonus that would obliterate any Yahtzees that do float out of the ether …the ones that often roll up for her father.

 

Not that we are truly competitive despite our tendency to groan at the roll that spins the number we gambled on and settles on the number we gambled with originally.

I think we are getting better at celebrating the wins and ignoring the losses.

At least it feels like there are fewer hard feelings.

“Bye-Bye Mr. Four-of-a-Kind,” she sings. “This will be the day that I die.”