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My Nickel’s Worth by Randy Ooney
Monopoly
If you were born in the 20th century, you probably have a Monopoly board game in your home. My first game had wooden houses and hotels and metal player tokens. I always wanted to be the iron. The popular game by Parker Brothers seems to have withstood the test of time. Recently, however, there has been an influx of special editions to keep sales up and dollars flowing their way. There is an MLB and NFL edition, and many retro and classic editions. The original game was based on Atlantic City, but now there is a game for many major cities, including Minneapolis and St Paul.
What I have not yet seen is the Twin Cities bowling edition. It’s a perfect fit. Brooklyn Park once had a center named Park Place. I think a car dealer is on the property now. And every approach to the foul line is a Boardwalk. Except now in some centers it’s a walk on synthetic stuff made to look like boards Our various bowling centers could be the color group properties. Maybe the Brunswick Zones could be the railroads, and the AMF centers could be the utilities.
Chance and Community Chest would be replaced by Strike and Spare cards. Some of the options:
“You were knocked out of six brackets - pay each player $10”
“Twisted ankle playing laser tag at the Brunswick Zone - pay doctor fee $45”
“You cashed in the CBA tournament - Collect $200”
“You won second prize at Texas Holdem - Collect $25”
Advance token to the River City Xtreme. If you pass “GO”, collect 200 game tokens.
“You replaced your Brunswick Black Beauty with a Storm Paradigm - pay $200”
You called a four bagger a Hambone. Go directly to jail.
Now you can play Monopoly on the internet. McDonald’s has a prize contest based on the game. There are even Monopoly slot machines. So, Parker Brothers, let’s get with it. We need the special bowling edition so we have something to do on the nights when we don’t bowl and “American Idol” isn’t on TV.
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