Bored Games

I think I am broken. Somewhere in the last 10 to 15 years something snapped in my head and made a part of me stop working correctly. I didn't even notice, like gaining a single pound, it just happened. Such a miniscule thing. I can't win at checkers anymore.

I kid you not that I was amazing at checkers as a child. Maybe a checkers prodigy. I beat everyone and could see the moves that had to be made well in advance. I taught myself chess but never have been very good at paying attention to all the pieces and their movements. I enjoyed the undertaking and once in a blue moon I won, but checkers was always there saying, "Oh, that chess is too fickle. Come play with me," and I would.

A few years ago I saw a glimpse that something had changed. Erin and I played a game of checkers at a restaurant with a checker board that had no pieces. We used pennies and I lost! Multiple games! Lost!

I wrote it off as pennies not being a good way to play. I couldn't keep my pieces separate from hers because the only difference was we each used a side of the penny. I was confident that I was still a checkers champion. I WAS WRONG!

I have a iPhone app for checkers and play it all the time. I have won twice. I might win more if I was the first move, who knows, but the point is that I lost that spark that made me great. Where did it disappear to? Have you seen it? If you do, please send it back my direction.

I feel like I have been double jumped by a chimpanzee.

That is all,

Newt