Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Ship-less

Hours of fun. Or aggravation . . .
Mom always appreciated a good joke. Usually, she stood back and . . . appreciated. Occasionally, she was the instigator.
Let me explain . . .
Our family had just been introduced to a new game. Battleship. Actually, an old game, originally played with paper and pencil, now in a new format.
Plastic peg boards of Mediterranean sea blue. With cute little plastic ships.
We spent many hours playing this game, trying to outwit each other with our clever placements.
Very occasionally, we were able to convince one or the other of our parents to play.
Dad was deadly. He systematically shot at your ships.
Every third hole.
You could see his juggernaut (good word) sweeping down on your hapless little fleet and were powerless to stop him.
The game always left you feeling like a butterfly on a pin.
But Mom was a little more. . . gentle. She would destroy your ships using woman's intuition.
You were just as dead, but you felt better about it.
One day, she was playing with one of my younger siblings, Blair. The game had been going on for some time.
Mom: "B-8."
Blair: "Hit." .
Blair: "G-3."
Mom: "Miss."
Mom: "B-7."
Blair: "Hit."
Blair: "G-1."
Mom: "Miss."
And so it went.
Finally, Mom had cornered Blair's last ship and was closing in for the kill.
And that's when Blair got tired of the constant discouragement. "Where are your darn ships anyways?!" he demanded.
Mom gazed down at her board. "Ships?" she said.
Then she grinned.
She hadn't put them on the board.
Game. Set. Match.

6 comments:

  1. Your mother was a clever woman! Not surprised.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Someone is a chip off the old (young) block!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your Mom achieved new levels of cheating! Loved it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would expect your Mother to come up with such a brilliant idea. She had to stay a step ahead with as much as she had on her plate.

    ReplyDelete
  5. From Menopausal Mother: Oh wow---seeing this game brings back childhood memories....and how bad I was at playing this, haha!

    ReplyDelete

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