Quid Pro Quo

My mother gave me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday and I decided to use it to buy a couple board games I’ve had my eye on for awhile. Wes detests board games normally, but there are a couple he actually doesn’t mind too much and I figured it was time we bought them.

The first one is called Settlers of Catan. It’s a strategy game involving the strategic placement of settlements and roads and gathering of resources which you can then use to purchase more settlements and/or roads. It’s great fun with a group of four people, so now we just need another couple to unwittingly volunteer to play with us by coming over.

The second game was a cribbage board. In case you’ve never played, cribbage is a card game and the points are tracked on a board, whoever gets to the end of the board first wins.

I played the game a lot with my Dad. In fact, one of my very favorite memories ever is the time I enjoyed a cold bottle of beer with my Dad on the beach while we passed the time playing cribbage together. It’s the perfect game for relaxing together, with a lovely rhythm and just enough strategy and luck of the draw to keep things fun.

Anyway, I asked Wes to please, please, please play with me because I love the game and don’t get to play it with my Dad anymore and he acquiesced…On one condition. A quid pro quo: A game of cribbage in exchange for a game of Starcraft.

Even though I wrote an entire book about people who play Starcraft, I’ve only played one game. It’s tough! In the book I likened it to military chess played in space, and I hold to that. I’m miserable at chess, and Wes had been playing Starcraft for years.

Still, you can’t get something for nothing so I guess I’ll be having my you-know-what handed to me soon enough on the Starcraft battlefield. I’m thinking my screen name should be HelplessN00B.