Family Game Night. That pathetic attempt made by parents to bond as a family. It's that chance to get James, the eldest son who has the most potential, to refrain from his hippie pot smoking for one night. It's that attempt to have Mary Louise, the middle child with scoliosis and braces, to for once feel included. It's that oppurtunity to keep the good looking child, Mary Beth in for one night and have her keep her clothes on. It's family game night. My family tried this once. My mom originally publicised it as "family movie night", but Blockbuster, Family Video and Hollywood Video have pretty much had it out for our family for about 10 years because we have fines off the charts. Honest to god we have had Big Fat Liar, the incredible cinematic production starring noneother than Frankie Muniz, checked out for about 6 years now. So, since our family was banned from renting movies for life, my mom thought substituting a board game would increase our chances at bonding because we would be forced to converse. Let me explain something to you, my family is equivalent to a bag of gardettos. None of us look alike, we don't really get a long and we've been shoved in a bag and forced to get along and experience this rare thing known as "love." The O'Brien family owns 3 games. Monopoly, Risk and Yachtzee. My poor mom, pathetically excited that we were all together on a Friday night splurged and bought junk food. She bought bugles. Bugles? No one really buys Bugles. It's like Uncle Bens Rice, sure its advertised, but no one really seriously thinks about ingesting either of those products. So there we are, all five of us kids and my mom and dad. We take a vote and monopoly wins, but alas, the fricking board is missing. All the money is accounted for, even the houses and chance cards are in ziploc bags, but the board is gone. Yachtzee is a no go because we realize, oh right, we don't even own the game yachtzee. And Risk, well Risk just sucks and you can't play that with 7 people. The bugles are un-opened, and there we are at family game night with no game, while simultaneously being on blockbusters shit list. Family game night was a bust, and we never tried it again.
