Tabletop Games

We play Draw, colorful double-six markers lined up and T-split over the white tablecloth.

“Domino!” I call, and he adds his points.

“Domino!” again.

And again.

And again.

I am beating him over and over again; sometimes gaining only a few points at a time from the chips left in his hand, other times accruing 20 points or more at the end of a round.

We play games.  This one is simple, it’s fun, and while a bit of strategy is involved, it is not complex.  It is something we do together to unwind, to entertain ourselves, to have a kinesthetic backdrop against which to exercise our conversational skills, or to exorcise the leftover blahs from our individual days.

My score keeps growing.

Sixteen.
Thirty-one.
Fifty-eight.
Seventy.

“Domino!”

He groans good-naturedly as the digits rise in my favor.

Ninety-four.
Ninety-seven.

One more hand…

One-oh-eight.

“Domino!”

He doesn’t complain, not exactly.  But he’s getting stomped on and he wants me to know that he knows it.

“Hon,” he says with competitive good humor, “How are you doing this?  I mean, it’s just Dominoes but…  You’re dominating me at this game!”

I pause a moment.

Smile.

And in my best teacher-explains-to-the-little-boy voice, I state the obvious.

“It should be clear to you by now,” I say to him with my eyebrow raised, “that I am a Domino’trix.”

.

Wot?  Did you think I would be talking about a different kind of tabletop ‘game’?

(Now that you mention it…
He WOULD look quite adorable bent over the tabletop.) 😀

.

.

Life is full of challenges.  My spouse and I face ours, both as individuals and as a couple, daily.  There are milestones and miscommunications, triumphs and tragedies, setbacks and successes.  And while those occasions can and do warrant celebration, acknowledgment, and commemoration, I do not necessarily believe it is (only) The Big Things that define us.  Instead, it is moments like these – full of humor and camaraderie, love and laughter – that comprise the highlights of our relationship.