When I started this whole family board game thing, I had a vision in my mind. We’d look exactly like the magazine layout – the one in the family magazine that recommended the games in the first place.

Now that I think about it, there were an awful lot of ads for board games in that issue.

In the magazine layout, the pieces are all in the right place, everyone is smiling, and it looks very… orderly.

Not exactly like our most recent game. We’d gone over to Grammy’s for a stirring round of Book-opoly (the same as Monopoly, but with a literary twist). Very quickly the game descended into an “Alice in Wonderland” meets “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” kind of chaos we seem so good at in our family.

Dad was acting like some sort of Enron executive. He kept trying trick our 9-year-old banker, Sierra, into giving him the wrong change every chance he got, nearly convinced her to give him two $500s instead of two $100s when he passed “Read” and tried to pay for books with everyone else’s money.

Sierra, in the meantime kept trying to buy things with bank money, instead of her own. (I wonder where she learned that?) Mireya, aka the kindergarten book mogul, tried to buy every single thing she landed on whether or not she had the money.

Grammy was attempting to ensure the rules were followed, whatever they might be, but quickly realized we were well beyond the long arm of the law. Great Grand-ma gave up on us and headed to the TV for some rest.

I kept wondering how this was relaxing.

We never really got to the point where anyone could buy a “bookstore” or “library” or really start building up any sort of real estate, or in this case, book holdings. Instead, as usual, the entire game descended into a strange free-for-all where, as Mireya wisely noted, it’s not about winning. It’s about playing.

I don’t think we’ll ever make it in a magazine layout. But Parker Brothers might as well get used to us – rules or not, we’re here to stay.

Boardwalk, or rather, “Grapes of Wrath,” anyone?