Sunday, March 5, 2006

All in...(The Family)



In a typical bout of family amusement, my family got together for dinner last night. While, my sister generally blogs about the random hillarity that ensues, I felt the need to take notes to share. To this, my brother looked at my sister, stating, "You've created a moron." This, I suppose, could be true. I always had random things to state and share, but never the avenue to share them with anyone. Not that anyone cares what I have to say, it's just that I have to say it, so that I don't explode from the laughter inside.

The evening started out with my father and sister discussing hybrid cars. At some point in the conversation, it came up that my aunt had just purchased a Volvo, but had to pay extra for the headlight wipers. Sara stated, matter of factly, that she had never seen Volvo without that feature.

Throughout this conversation, my mother was commenting on how she loves when I come over, because I eat the random junk food that "Everyone opens up, but nobody ever eats." However, in an absolute fit of gluttony, my father sat at the table, spreading margerine on the butter crackers set out with the cheddar cheese cubes. When he was called out on this, he just said that he liked them better that way, and continued. Makes you kind of scared, doesn't it?

Dinner went pretty smoothly. In fact, this was one of the quietest dinners my family has ever shared. There was some talk of Sydney having rocket boosters in her butt, but things were going pretty normally. That was until the inevitable happened. My dad dropped a bomb on the conversation. Out of nowhere, my father asked if we had heard about the man from Ansonia that went to the casino, won $10,000, and upon their return, his friends murdered him. Sara quipped, "Thanks, Debbie..." My dad likes to drop bombs...'nuff said.

The night turned interesting after dinner, however, when it was decided we were all going to play Texas Hold'em. A little warning about playing cards with my family. It is no fun playing cards with my dad. Though he's not Rain Man, I swear he counts cards. Generally, this wouldn't be a problem in Hold'em, but he's actually nuts. First off, I can keep a pretty good poker face, but he has no problem saying exactly what you're doing. You can't play Pinnochle without him telling everyone at the table what they have in their hand and what they're doing wrong. It's not that the constant coaching is annoying, it's that he's always right. His table etiquette was lacking, but it may have balanced out Ernie's Poker Nazi mode.

Before we started the game, I got my usual razzing for being unable to shuffle properly. I've been trying for a good ten years now. Things just haven't been clicking for me. Of course, when Stacey said to move my thumb up the cards slowly, I got really excited. I have to move my thumbs?!?! This was an amazing revelation to me. We may have had a breakthrough. Soon, I might not have cards smacking into each other. It can be embarassing when you're playing against total strangers and you have to say, "Hey, I really can't shuffle worth a damn."

During the first game, things played out true to form. It was no fun playing cards with my dad. Actually, it was fun. He just has a tendency to win. At one point, Ernie quipped about how he looked like Scrooge McDuck behind his stack o' chips. Something was said about swimming in his money bin, or something...I digress.

Meanwhile, the second game went better. Sara had left, and we were playing with only five. Things looked bad for me at first. Slowly but surely, I felt as though I would be first one out. At one point, I even took the dog for a walk, hoping to miss a hand, only to find that my blinds had been posted for me. Jerks! Somehow, I managed to get the chip lead. My dad was actually the first one out. Being a bully, I quickly went after Stacey's small pile, and pushed her out of the game. This proved to be a better move than I expected. Her comic insight from the Loser's Lounge was hysterical as I went to take out my mother. Playing cutthroat poker, I tried to put her all in, right away. She folded on me! I couldn't believe it. The next three hands, I did the same thing...and she kept winning! In a final act of desperation, I got a crap hand dealt to me. A 3, 8 unsuited. On the flop, two threes came up, and I just went all in, hoping to end the night at midnight. She went all in...and sure enough, the other three came on the river...

Good night, drive home safely...

It was SUCH a bizarre night. Especially since the last time my family all got together to play a game was Christmas Eve, and we all know that ended poorly...

2 comments:

S said...

I don't want to talk about Catchphrase. And I'm pretty sure your wife is still afraid that I might snap at her if I ever play a game against her again!

Anonymous said...

I like how I was finally mentioned about 2/3 of the way into the story. As usual, Mrs. Invisible. ;)