No one ever seems to really notice, but we’re constantly playing Monopoly. It’s a long, classic game that everyone seems to have a general understanding of how to play. Maybe Darrow just got the idea by watching people. We have obviously been playing since before its invention. After all, even the ones who haven’t touched the game board see other people know what the relationship between the pieces and the players is.

We are all constantly playing Monopoly. Sometimes, we have to pick different playing pieces because Nina likes to be the dog and Jack likes to be the shoe, so we can’t be the shoe this time, because we’ll let Jack be the shoe. Or sometimes, we are the ones sticking to that one piece. I’m going to be the dog. And everyone else changes pieces. This time, he’ll be the one to provide the comic relief, and she’ll be the mediator. Who wants to be the banker this round? Everyone and no one.

We are all constantly playing Monopoly and we all move through this long game. We benefit when we charge our friends for rent, and take a certain amount of pleasure in the roll that just forced Sally to jail. And we love landing on Free Parking and passing Go. But how often does that happen? It’s a very small chance that we win the lottery and then when we do, everyone is just jealous that we got it and they didn’t. Because in the end, we all want to be on top, even if a friend has to be a small stepping stone to get up to the top.

While we all play Monopoly, we are constantly focused on the goal: how can I win. And come the end of the game, it’s all about who has all the toys, not who owned Boardwalk and Park Place. And if someone spent too much money on hotels but no one ever landed on it, it is their own bad karma coming back to haunt them. So long as we aren’t the ones mortgaging properties to pay our friends, our playmates, our competitors, we’re happy. And we do not offer to help pay for our friends, no, that would be unfair. And silly because we all want to win. Maybe we make it seem not so bad, provide a small buffer and trade properties; I’ll give you Water Works if you’ll give me Oriental Avenue and one hundred dollars.

Sometimes, while we all play Monopoly, we get interrupted. Sometimes our playmates have to go home, or maybe it’s just time for dinner. We can leave the game up though, hoping to see our playmate, our competitor, again. It becomes a lot more complicated, though. Whose turn was it? Are you sure that was where the shoe was? I thought I had more money than this… That’s the problem with long-distance games. You can’t really pick up where you left off. You have to step back, reevaluate, and then either keep going back from an agreed upon point or just ditch the game altogether and start a new one.

We all constantly play Monopoly, because we all have friends who are our competitors. Sometimes, though, just sometimes, we get a little carried away, because Johnny went home crying, and Nina’s no longer who she used to be. And Sally? Sometime she disappeared from the board. It must have been when we sent her to jail. Now she’s playing Monopoly with some other playmates, some other competitors, and we’re not invited. No we’re not invited, because we won this round, and we need to move on. We’re grown ups now, and we need to find different playmates. We don’t know our old playmates; they didn’t win as much as we did. They went to play at different tables.

So we go sit at different tables to play Monopoly. We decide that one game is not worth picking up, but another one is, and besides, now there’s a new version of Monopoly. Mike wants to play Star Wars Monopoly. Do we want to play Star Wars Monopoly? Do you want to play Star Wars Monopoly? Or are you just sick of playing Monopoly.

We are all constantly playing Monopoly. You can’t escape the board, the tokens, and the skittle-colored play money. No one wants to lose, and to start with, no one wants to switch tables. But we all switch tables. We keep switching until we find the right people to play with. But if we were honest with ourselves for one moment, and we rarely are, we would realize that sometimes, the people we wanted to play with, are the people we just left.