I'd like to buy a vowel, please.

I walked through the Coop yesterday on my way to class. That's the student dining room on our campus, also known as the Student Cooperative. There was a foursome playing cards and I thought, how erudite, they're having a 9 am bridge game. Not so, they were playing go fish. So much for the superior intelligence of college students. I played go fish with my brothers when they were 4 and 6 years old. In fact, my poor beleagered mother taught me to play casino when I was 5 to divert herself when she could get both those little brats to sleep at the same time. As we grew up, our hall closet got filled up with board games like Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Life, and my personal favorite, Sorry. Sorry was particular fun because you could screw up your opponent's game with spectacular aplomb, and I was certainly into that scene with my little brothers. Later, my grandmother taught me to play Canasta, with three or four decks. That was really dandy. My mother took Risk away from us kids; World War III would rage in our living room every time we played it. And I went through a period of addiction to shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Those are events most fun when shared with another addict, jumping up and down on the couch, yelling out the answers to impress one another. Well, I am just a little competitive here. OK, I am a lot competitive. It runs in my family. Our holiday poker games are still thrilling when I can sucker my now old fart brothers out of a big pot. At penny-nickel-dime, it is never very much money. It's all about rivalry. It never ends.