The Sheltered Islander By Sally Flynn

Monopoly

I just saw a commercial on TV for the new and improved Monopoly game. The big "improvement" is that they've gotten rid of the paper money and now have a little electronic debit card that they players swipe for paydays and fines.

Some things cannot be improved, like when Coca-Cola tried to replace their traditional coke with New Coke and, within a year, they went back to the original formula because of consumer demand. Some things just should not be changed, like the Monopoly game.

First of all, Monopoly is part of everyone and their mother's childhood. Monopoly references are part of our lexicon. Everybody knows that you don't want to land on Boardwalk unless you own it. Everyone knows, once in awhile, life will give you a "get out of jail free" card and you'd better hang onto it until you really need it.

Monopoly teaches us many life lessons. We learned how to take turns. We learned you'd better pay attention so you don't miss your turn - a lesson we all use when driving. We learned that it's nobody else's fault if you rolled three doubles and landed in jail. That taught us personal responsibility and to remember that if you got away with it twice, don't press your luck. You learned that winning a beauty contest is only worth $10 in real estate, but millions in advertising.

We learned the art of the deal when trading properties to build your empire. We learned about mortgages. And most importantly, we learned how to distract the banker with cookies so you can sneak over and grab your deed - also handy in real life. When you're at a real bank, bring cookies to your banker when discussing your mortgage or applying for a loan. Cookies laced with crushed Vicodan have always worked best for me. Your credit rating looks better with each consecutive cookie and after half a plate they'll approve your dog for a loan.

We learned how to negotiate, beg and cry on cue when we landed on Park Place or Boardwalk. And how many times have those begging and crying skills come in handy? For me, thousands of times.

We all learned about money denominations from Monopoly. We learned how to count, add, subtract and steal Monopoly money. This helped identify your money management style early in life.

Were you an obsessive compulsive who stacked all your money neatly and in order of denomination, with the ends tucked under the board just enough to secure the stack?

Did you have a big spender style with all the bills in one stack in sequence with the dark orange $500 dollar bill on the outside so it looked like you had a wad of big bills that you could peel off with panache?

Did you have a laissez-faire style with all the bills in one stack, but not in any particular order?

Were you showing your potential to be a homeless person with all your money scattered around and losing half of it on the floor?

Were you the future mafia boss who hid all the $100s and $500s under the $1s so the other players thought you had less than you actually did?

With the new debit machine monopoly, all these important money skills will be lost. All the revelations about your true personality will be lost. Plus the game will need batteries!

Some things just need to be left alone. What's next, electronic scrabble?

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