Don't Gamble with Your Imaginary Friends

It was a long, rain-soaked weekend, and faced with the threat of a coerced game of Candy Land or—Heaven forbid—a dozen games of Uno, I invented a game of my own to play with the boys.

It was a mildly imaginative cross between poker and Monopoly, with a down-home, life-on-the-ranch twist.

We used Monopoly money, but the hotels became ranch houses or gambling halls, the houses became livestock barns and chicken coops, and the “Get Out of Jail Free” card became a credit card, in case someone needed a line of credit for some fast cash. After each roll of the dice, we played a hand of poker to see who won that property. I was the dealer, the bank and The House.

Before some of my fellow Baptist parents judge me, here was my fatherly logic: this could be both a math lesson for the little one and a life lesson on the perils of gambling for the teenager. Would the kids invest their fake Monopoly bucks in their ranch and homestead, or squander them in a gambling saloon? (I didn’t tell them about all the saloon girls lurking around. That was a lesson for another day.) Sure enough, by the third hand the six-year-old was counting cards like a master of Blackjack. You are welcome, first-grade teachers.

As I also expected, after a half dozen reckless gambles, my oldest son had squandered his fortune, was up to his eyeballs in credit card debt, had lost his imaginary ranch house to foreclosure, had his make-believe wife and kids leave him, and gambled away his imaginary family farm. He had a single white Monopoly dollar to his name. It was a pitiful state of affairs.

Meanwhile, I was trying to decide whether I wanted to purchase an imaginary pontoon boat for freshwater, or a yacht for saltwater, and whether I should convert my second imaginary home into a love shack or a hunting lodge.

The youngest soon fell on hard times, too, however and in desperation put his house and barn into the pot in a last-ditch gamble. In the one good hand his brother held all night, the teen beat him with four-of-a-kind.

Instantly, the little fellow started crying. Sobbing real tears. If I have a fault as a husband and father, which is up for debate, it’s that I don’t handle illogical emotions too well.

“What the hell, kid? What are you doing? There’s no crying in poker!”

“But Daddy, I lost my barn! My penguins and flamingoes were in that barn! Now I’ll never get them back!” More tears.

I was temporarily speechless. Instead of a cow or horse ranch, my creative but emotional son was raising herds of penguins and exotic birds.

Luckily, while the teenager was a poor gambler, he was an excellent capitalist and entrepreneur. “I’ll sell your barn and flamingoes and penguins back to you for a hundred and fifty bucks,” he offered his weeping sibling. A deal was struck, to everyone’s satisfaction. Sure enough, the older boy ransomed the make-believe animals back to their owner, who gave up his last dollar to get them back safely.

I was stunned. Part of me wanted to laugh. Part of me wanted to cry. All of me was amazed. Such was the power of a small child’s imagination that his ranch was not only real to him, it contained cute, adorable animals that he loved and cherished. For that moment in time, those imaginary animals were not just real, but precious and beloved and he would give up anything to keep them.

If I never obtain riches, ranches, yachts, and other trappings of wealth, may I at least be blessed with the type of strong, vivid imagination and passion that my children possess. That is all I would need in this life to be happy and complete.

Faced with the hard realities of life, too often we as adults work and sweat and sacrifice and gamble away our happiness, our playfulness, our imaginations. If you can, take a little time to try and find that creativity, passion and clever, playful joy again. Take some time to find your inner child, whenever you can. Take some time to sit and play some stupid game with your kids, even if you have to invent one. You just might learn a life lesson or two of your own.

A full house may beat three-of-a-kind, but nothing beats a barn full of penguins and flamingos.