Get Out Of Jail Free

" Assc Press Thu Jul 30, 9:04 pm ET
FRASER, Mich. – A game of Monopoly has landed a Michigan man in jail. WDIV-TV reported a 54-year-old man was playing the board game Saturday night with a female friend when he tried to buy Park Place and Boardwalk from her. When she refused, Fraser police Lt. Dan Kolke told WWJ-AM he hit her in the head, breaking her glasses. The man was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and battery."

The poet Maya Angelou said, "You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights." I would like to add to this list; waiting in lines, getting the wrong order from a fast food place, and playing board games - in particular playing Monopoly.

Monopoly is a board game patented by Charles Darrow in 1935 and published by Parker Brothers. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single entity. He modeled the game after the market crash in 1929 which brought on the Great Depression. Monopoly is the most commercially-successful board game in United States history, with 485 million players worldwide.

Frankly, I can't understand why the police would arrest someone for assault as a result of playing Monopoly. Anyone who has ever played the game by it's real rules knows that all players risk being assaulted or being the assaulter with every nerve grating turn trying to get past Park Place and Boardwalk and make it to Go / Payday. Especially if someone has managed to get a few houses on the one of those spots or worst of all, if they've gotten a hotel on Boardwalk. No one who lands on Boardwalk with a hotel gets out alive. It usually means the financial ruin and ultimate downfall of the player who has landed there. The ruined person usually throws their top hat, shoe, or car, at the s.o.b. who owns Boardwalk and then throws what few white ones and pink fives they have left, into the face of the bloodletting, money hungry Scrooge who has forced them out of the game. Naturally there are fights, assaults, and homocides, associated with Monopoly.

Some people make the argument that forcing other players out by creating Monopoly empires is the whole point of the game, that the last player with the most money wins. These are the people who want to play by the actual rules printed on the inside of the cover of the box. These are the people who, as long as they are winning, say, "It's just a game, why are you getting all upset?" But, if they are losing, they scream, "You're cheating! That's not the way the game is played, give me the rules, I'll show you!" Then they re-interpret the rules to their advantage. That's right, Republicans.

When my family plays Monopoly, we add a few rules. 1. If you run out of Monopoly money, you can use real money. No joke, we have all used real ones, fives, tens and twenties till we got to Paypay to get our Monopoly $200. 2. Personal loans are allowed. The Republicans in the game vehemently object to this concept, but only until THEY need a loan.
3. The rules say if you land in Jail you have to stay there for three turns or pay $50 to get out. We allow prorating. You can serve a one or two turn sentence and pay $18 per day if you're short on cash, or you can take a personal loan from another player. If you're the poorest player in the game and you land in jail, you can get out after a one turn sentence and a one dollar fine under our Early Release Program for the underprivileged. 4. We take a Sharpie marker and change one of the Beauty Contest Opportunity Knocks cards into a Get Over Boardwalk or Park Place Free card.

When my family plays the game, no one is forced out. Which is nice, but then the game never ends. Usually after about three hours we just all agree to stop, because some of us have other things to do in our lives, or the beer and pizza is all gone. The person with the most in money and assets wins. Any gloating by the winner will definitely end in assault, a real assault, not just the normal pinching and slapping and threatening that occurs naturally during the course of the game, but a real, bounce beer bottles off the winners head, assault.

When a journalist friend of mine left for a new position, I gave her a wallet with a genuine Monopoly "Get Out Of Jail Free" card in it. Why? Because she's a journalist and in case she ever got in trouble and held in contempt for refusing to reveal her sources, I wanted her to know she had something to fall back on.

It's pretty clear to me that the officer who arrested that man for a Monopoly assault either has never played the game, or is a Republican who never won the game.