Sunday, February 28, 2021

Lucky Day

 William came to spend the night. It's been a couple weeks since we saw him, so it was nice to have him around. We decided to take a wander through the Goodwill to see if perhaps we might find some board games to keep him interested. It's always a bit tricky, because he would much rather play video games. We are the keeper of strict time limits (one hour) and are required to find other things to pique his curiosity. We hate to spend a lot of money on games because if he is not interested, they are never played again. 

It was a very lucky day. We found 'Clue'. William had never played it but hearing the words 'solve a murder', he was all in. He also found a magic set. On top of it all, the games were 99 cents!

So...we stocked up. 

I heard a little gasp from behind me, and turned to find Tim studying two large panels of acrylic, about 3 x 4 feet. They were thick panels. He said, "These are $4.99 each! Do you have any idea what this thickness of acrylic costs new?!!"

William and I stood there with our games. "Nope," I said. 

"These would be over $100. each. These will be great for the green house!" and there he went wrassling those bad boys up to the register before someone else caught sight of them. 

William and I followed along. 

We went to the car and a man stopped to talk. He had been behind us as we checked out. "Those were quite a deal," he said, And Tim, being Tim, explained how much they cost new at Lowes. "What are you going to do with them?" the man wanted to know, and I told him about our greenhouse to be built this spring. "That's great!" he said, "Good luck to you!" 

So we came home and Tim was beyond happy, and William tore into his magic set and was pleased to see that while one trick was missing, all the others were there, along with the instructions and a DVD, They were even different tricks from the magic set that he already has. 

I was happy too. I opened the Clue game and counted out the weapons - the revolver, the candlestick, the knife, the rope, the wrench and the lead pipe were all there. The cards were all there. Colonel Mustard, Mr. Green, Mrs, White, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, and Mrs. Peacock were there too.

William was engrossed in stabbing a pencil through a playing card, magically undamaging the plastic frame the card had been inserted into. He demonstrated the trick to us. "Ta-da!" he said, "how did I do that? The plastic doesn't slide inside  the frame." 

"Hmmm," we said, and we pretended to be impressed, even though I had showed him how to slide the plastic inside the frame not more than 10 minutes before. 

I carefully replaced the game in the box, and put it away. This morning, William was anxious to play.  He took the game to the library where there is more room, and by the time that I went in there with my coffee, the lead pipe was missing. We looked under the sofa and the coffee table. We lifted sofa cushions. 

I didn't want to make him feel bad, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say "William, in the library, lost the lead pipe." 

We played two games and Grandpa and William both thought it was well worth 99 cents. 


13 comments:

  1. But you bought nothing to amuse yourself?

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  2. It's called Cluedo over here and one of my favourite games but no one would ever play it with me. I shall have to wait for grandchildren to be old enough so I can beat them too!

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  3. I like 'Clue/Cluedo'. I also like keeping small boys off electronics. Teaching a small boy sleight of hand is very entertaining as well.

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  4. Tim sounds a lucky lad. Look forward to seeing the greenhouse project.

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  5. So you don’t have a CLUE where the pipe went.

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  6. I offered up my thoughts. They could not be disproven. I decided against accusing.

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  7. Last summer during the pandemic, the girls brought up our Clue game (covered in a layer of dust) and we played four or five games over a few days. I thought I would trounce them with my childhood experience but they beat me every single time. Fortunately, you really don't need the props to play so we always left ours in the box.

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  8. Ha! Must be the weekend for it, as we found Cluedo in an op shop "as is" and the guy thought it was overpriced for $10 so gave it to us for $5.

    "As is" was truly brand new with all pieces!

    I am currently Mrs Peacock in the Study. We haven't made any accusations yet, but I have my suspicions.

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  9. I love Clue but I don’t think I ever owned it, nor did my children. Also love Sorry and Operation, both of which I had. I was never smart enough for Risk but know scores of folks who love it. Sounds like y’all got great bargains.

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  10. We love games and have a cabinet full of them, Clue included... but I think the all-time favorite is one called Masterpiece (it's an art auction game). If you ever run across it, snap it right up!

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  11. I love second hand stores. I especially love visiting my friend in WI, where there are many, many St. Vincent's, and even a Habitat for Humanity store.

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  12. Kelly, I have heard of that game but I don't believe I have played it. It looks fun. The game that we loved and played over and over again was 'Shenanigans'. We played a lot of Monopoly as well. William is not a monopoly fan.

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  13. Kids like instant gratification. They don't get that with Monopoly. That's a game that can last for hours.

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