A Dog, a Hat, and a Wheelbarrow

The hat's off the board due to a collision with the dice. It's back on now: one, two, three, four, five spaces ahead, and that's one of the railroads SOLD. Connecticut, Baltic, and States Avenues go next; now the wheelbarrow's on chance ... what's that? Back three spaces? Oh, income tax. Not off to a great start.

Bouncing dice, racing players, two times around the board, and half the properties are SOLD. The hat coerces the wheelbarrow into giving up its railroad, and the dog has the first monopoly: Atlantic Avenue, Ventor Avenue, and Marvin Gardens. There goes Boardwalk, a great asset to the hat which seems to be establishing a great inventory, but there go some houses up over on the dog's Ventor Avenue and Marven Gardens. The wheelbarrow has both utilities now, but those have never really been much of a game changer.

Money's being passed around the board at an impressive rate, the players' stacks growing and shrinking, growing and shrinking.

Everything comes to a sudden stop.

Ten minutes later the action continues with crumbs tumbling down to the board with the dice as the bills and deeds are gradually covered with an oily, glistening sheen. New construction, mortgages, bartering, and then the wheelburrow is out, falling to its fate on none other than the railroad it sold to the hat hours before.

The dog chases the hat around the board again, the hat is in and out of jail, and the money goes back and forth. Around and around. Back and forth.

Around and around.

Back.

And.

Forth.

And then the pieces are still.

Hours pass.

Days pass.

The deeds and the bills sit frozen in place, and the dice read "5" and "2," one resting near the "M" of "Monopoly," and the other resting right on the Monopoly-man's tophat.

After nearly a week, after dust begins to settle with the crums on the board, the game is violently disturbed, turned on its side as the dog, the hat, the wheelbarrow, the houses and hotels, the dice, and the crumbs tumble into the box. The hard-earned cash is sorted, the deeds are stacked into one pile and rubber-banded, and the game is packed away to the top shelf of the coat closet where it will sit until the players forget how long it really takes to finish a game of Monopoly.