A Good Loser

You have heard of being born with two left feet, well my husband was born with two left brains.  His creative/sentimental side is almost non-existent, but he is very analytical, great at math, logic and absolutes. I am certain that while he was sitting in class in high school, during a class discussion on A Tale of Two Cities or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or art appreciation, my man’s brain was somewhere far, far from the classroom.  He was more likely mentally calculating the average record low high temperatures for blue moons in January for odd years in the current century. Or he was figuring out how much faster he could accelerate on his bike, if he put a 22-tooth freewheel on the front, and a 7-tooth cog in the back, raised his seat post ¼ inch, and switched his Weirwolf tires for Panaracers.  He has no cultural literacy.  He would have no idea who Quasimodo is, or even Elizabeth Bennett.

 

In spite of his cultural illiteracy, my man is very smart.  He has a very high IQ. (It is too bad he knows what it is, lol!)  He is politically savvy and numerically analytical. He is tops at chess, budgeting, or map-reading. He is an expert Bible answer man. He creams everyone at Risk and sometimes even Scrabble, and he should be able to beat his own kids at a game of Set, but he can’t, and that is, finally, the point of this post: He just hates losing. 

If you don’t have Set, you need to get it.  It is the one game we have found which the kids win every time.  Set is a visual perception game in which, out of twelve cards turned face-up, players try to find three whose three attributes (shape, color, and pattern) are either all the same or all different.  The person who first sees a “set” yells out “SET!” and grabs the cards that make up that set.  The dealer quickly fills in the blanks that were left, and a new search is on.  The game ends when all of the cards have been dealt, and everyone agrees that there are no more sets on the table. The person with the most sets is the winner. Sound easy?  It’s not if you are an adult.  Our grown-up brains see what we are accustomed to seeing.  Kids’ brains see things as they are.

Last night the kids were playing with Dad. I kept hearing children’s voices hollering, “SET!!” and much children’s laughter, but my husband’s voice I did not hear at all. After an uproarious time of yelling, card grabbing, hysterical laughter, and cries of, “I won that round!” he quietly got up from the table, came to where I was sitting, and said, “They creamed me! This game isn’t even fun anymore.”  Will he play again?  I know he will, because he is a wonderful father.  He enjoys hearing his children laughing and exulting in their mastery over Dad, even if it is at his expense.  I am thankful for this man whose ego is not bigger than his love for his girls.

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You can play Set online right here.  Be sure to get some practice if you are planning to buy the game for your kids!