Cards

We played a lot of cards while my parents were in town. A LOT of cards. We stayed up too late and some things I noticed while playing are...

Everyone is happy when they are winning. Mostly we can stay friendly when we are losing. Unless we get a hand like this..

How he plays cards without sorting them I'll never know.

Then things start to get a little tense sometimes. Another thing that makes card players cranky is when a seemingly good hand goes bad... or when there just isn't one single thing you can do to pull back from behind. I said it many times through out the week, and I'll say it here. Cards can bring out the worst in people.

Another really crappy hand is above. If you've never played Spades, the idea is to bid how many "tricks" you can win by playing the highest card. If you are out of a suit, you can play a spade and that "trumps" the other cards and wins the trick. Anyway, another way to wrack up the points is to bid zero, or "nil" and get 100 points if you don't take any. That's why having a bunch of low crap and the ace of spades is pretty crappy.

And then there is this beautiful practically perfect nil hand and I didn't make it. And that made me pretty MAD. Like I said, cards bring out the worst in people. Well, at least me. I generally try to hide my competitive nature but sometimes it just shows through.

Losing 6 times in a row (over two days) is NOT fun... however a sudden death match due to a tie is quite fun. Even if you lose.

Which we did. Still, when is there ever a tie? I've been playing cards since I was 12, and I've never seen it.

We didn't lose every single game. The first night we won 3 for 3. The last night dad and I hit a winning streak and things were a little happier for me. It was those middle nights that had me being cranky and irritable.