October 1999
So it’s quite amazing that Destiny decided I should watch old videos of me last night, being young and cheeky [pun most definitely intended], and today come home to check out page 2 of Facebook’s bumper stickers to discover this picture.
The corollary?
One of the videos of me that my mom and I watched yesterday was of the family trip to Yellowstone National Park. Like the image’s caption states, it was in October of 1999 that my dad, mom and I flew to Salt Lake City, UT, and road-tripped through Idaho and into Wyoming. We were there for a week or two — I can’t seem to remember, but I did keep a journal for this early vacation — and on one of the nights, we played Monopoly. Sure enough, with me being 8 and all, I fell to the mercy of my mother’s hotels. She owned the two dark blue properties, a hotel on each one, and I landed on the first one. She took almost all I had with that insane paying rate. And as I gave her my fourth-to-last bill, I swept up the dice into my hands, and shook them like crazy. My parents eyed me, grinning, knowing I had escaped the clutches of the second hotel. When their turns came, they’d have to pay me when they’d land on my properties!
I couldn’t lose. Everything was foolproof. The chance of me rolling double ones was one out of a million; if I did, however, I would lose. Foolproof-ly.
I stared right back at my parents. I was going to beat them, and they knew it. They were so afraid, they tried scaring me, enticing me to quit while I was ahead, because there was no way I couldn’t roll double ones. But I knew better. Much, much better.
Laughing it off, I dropped the dice onto the board. When I looked at their tops — their faces that would declare my fate — my jaw dropped.
I’m sure you can guess what happened. My hands, my fingers, my shake, whatever it was that the outcome depended on, got me to roll double ones.
Those snake eyes burned into my soul, causing me to question every ounce of my 8-year-old knowledge regarding probability and mathematical outcomes. Those snake eyes forced me to move two more spaces, land on the second hotel, and pay my mom the last four bills I had.
And quit the game.
THE END.
Okay, okay, this didn’t happen. Aren’t I such a good story teller?
… Just kidding. It did happen. And it did hurt.
To this day, I can’t really explain why I lost the way I did. I could blame my luck — if there was such a thing — or I could blame nonexistent magnets located within the dice, but either way, it was my pride that caused my loss.
I wrote above that I was so sure I wouldn’t land on Boardwalk [that second blue spot]. I could’ve probably bet my life on it. But what would’ve happened? I would’ve died. DIED. Because I would have staked everything that I had for something that — when it all comes down to it — I was simply hoping for.
During the series Greater Things, Pastor David was talking about the three kinds of chairs that we can sit in. This memory of mine reminds me of the Collapsible Chair. I had hoped that what I built by myself would support me for the time being; but I saw, first-hand, that when I hurt, I had to quit to keep myself from going into debt. Actually, I’m not even sure if it’s possible to go into debt in Monopoly. But my point is that I was nowhere near having my properties secured. There wasn’t Monopoly insurance, or bank interest, or a Get-Out-of-a-Double-Ones-Roll-FREE card. And yet in the back of my mind I just wished that I would get anything but a two.
And though it takes me a while [as you can see, a while in this context means years] to fully grasp the magnitude of the lessons I learned when I was half my age, I can look back now and appreciate that I was given an opportunity, no matter how subtle it was, to experience the common misfortunes of life. Thank God that that time it was only in Monopoly. But what about now? What about next year, when I’m in college, being all ‘independent’ and somewhat ‘rule-free’? I need to learn that Monopoly was Monopoly back then, and life is heading my way in the fast lane.
Though it was a small chance — such a small chance! — for me to roll that two, it happened. It happened! That was that, end of story, capisce. And life is going to be like that too. There aren’t second chances, because we already had one, and we screwed it up because we didn’t act when we could have, or we didn’t speak when we were allowed to. We only prayed.
I learned, exactly 9 years ago, that you can’t just pray for something to happen.
And that’s what we learned at the Wave yesterday, Aundre.
. I just have a message to share.
