Earthopoly. It’s Really a Thing.

Game nights in our house are often a disaster. It takes longer for our kids
to agree on a game than to actually play one. Once we do finally start
playing, one kid will start bragging and then the other will start raging
about the bragging and then we get snippy about the bragging and raging and
want to send them to sleep away camp for the rest of their lives.
This is no one’s definition of a good time.

So, given our sketchy track record in the board game department, I am not
sure why my partner picked up the game “Earthopoly” on the clearance rack
at the toy store, but she did.

It sat unopened on the shelf in our family
room for 10 months. Then, one night, I was home alone with our youngest kid
and she dragged it into the living room and asked me to play with her.
Because I have been traumatized by past games, my eye began to twitch and I
had the urge to yell “NO!” and run from the room but I composed myself,
covered my twitchy eye and said, “Sure, honey, I’d love to play.”

I opened the box and the game looked complicated. I sighed heavily and
said, “I’ll have to read the directions and it could take a very long
time.” She assured me in her perkiest voice that she didn’t mind
waiting. I sighed again and examined the contents of the box.

The game pieces looked like things I would find in my back yard – a piece of wood, a
shriveled up bean, a piece of bamboo and a rock. What madness was this? I
began reading the instructions and dealt out the appropriate amount of
money and then got to the part where it explained that each player bought
properties and then, when other players landed on them, collected rent and
I gasped aloud in recognition! This was MONOPOLY – earthy crunchy tree
hugging Monopoly – but Monopoly nonetheless!

The properties are all glorious places with names like “Wonderous
Waterfalls” and “Voluptuous Volcanoes”. Okay – not voluptuous but I can’t
remember the real name. The utilities are “Wind Power” and “Solar Power”
and the railroads have been replaced with “Reuse”, “Recycle”, “Reduce” and
“Rethink”. When you “buy” properties, you don’t really “own” them as much
as become their caretaker. Carbon credits are houses. Clean air is a hotel.
You don’t go to jail – you go to the dump. It all made sense!

I explained the basic premise of the game and, as a product of her
generation, all the language about carbon credits and recycling and
emissions seemed to make perfect sense to her. So, we began to play. She
threw caution to the proverbial “Wind Power” and bought carbon credits like
Al Gore hopped up on organic Red Bull. My strategy was to snap up as many
properties as I could and leave her with nothing. Somehow, my plan went
awry and I found myself spending more time in the dump than in the
“Marvelous Mountains” and I got whipped by my six year old. Despite my loss
and her bragging, we had a great time.

I have fond memories of playing Monopoly with my dad. It’s strange to think
that my daughter will have memories of playing Earthopoly with me and no
cultural context for Monopoly at all. I could reflect here on the passage
of time and the evolution of our environmental consciousness but instead
I’ll just say this:

It will never be right for a child to yell, “I want to be the
shrunken bean!” instead of “I want to be the race car!”

Never. Ever.

This post is by Vikki Reich, a zen master in a neurotic sheep’s clothing. She blogs regularly at uppoppedafox.com.