Since what Stephen Colbert calls the "Superb Owl" is over and Seattle is still drinking some of the nation's best beer, I nevertheless feel it may be time to ask whether football is truly America's quintessential game. Does allowing huge men to pulverize other huge men regardless of what permenent brain damage may ensue in exchange for large amounts of money really best represent the Land of the Free? Even when the National Football League is ruled to be non-profit despite the millions they rake in each season from the clubs in the league? Could there be a more representative choice?
I think I have a better candidate, especially when we put a modern spin on it and let the game represent what America truly has become. Since we can't play this particular game in a stadium with thousands watching, we have to reduce its scope and make each player stand for one percent of all Americans. There are a hundred players.
The game is Monopoly.
In this modern game of Monopoly, you sit down at a very large table and the first thing you notice is that the chairs aren't all the same, ranging from hard wooden benches at the bottom end of the table to stuffed armchairs with built-in trays for snacks and drinks at the top. At the head of the table, the chairs look like thrones.
Next, you notice the game pieces are different, ranging from simple pieces of plastic to elaborate figures made of precious metals. You, being from the Middle Class, get a figure of a television set made from some acrylic material. This is when you find out the players at the head of the table always go first and get to roll three dice instead of your two. The folks at the foot of the table only have one. You also get a copy of the rules.
They say that the person in the biggest chair, standing for the top one per cent of the people in the game, owns forty percent of the board. the nine chairs next to him own another thirty-seven percent. Only about one percent of the board is owned by the bottom half of the players, competing for Baltic Avenue.
Another thing you learn from the rules is that those at the head of the table never go to jail since they can buy "Get out of jail free" cards. This means. we are told, that there is more room in the jail for those at the foot. Also, any changes in the rules are made by those at the upper end since they are allowed to bid on laws they favor and on who gets to be on the law-writing committee.
The first time you pass GO. you collect your two hundred dollars and are disturbed to find that the player with the gold Lexus gets a thousand. This is when you discover that the higher up on the table the player sits, the more money he gets. The guy you met at a break who was sitting at the bottom of the table picks up ten bucks and a written lecture on self-suficiency.
After a while, you're given a new set of rules that were changed during the break. All the wooden benches are removed because it makes life too easy for the poorer players. The money saved is used to create a new kind of hotel to put on the better properties. Another rule makes it easier for the richest players to merge and become even bigger (and richer). Players begin dropping out of the game - some of them at the upper end - because they can't get big enough and others drop out because they see that whatever they do, it doesn't help them. Pretty soon there are only a few players left.
Which might explain why we have the lowest percentage of voters in the industrialized world. Which might explain why our Congress is about as popular as poison ivy in a nudist camp and why what once was the Hope of the Free World is now just another Way to Make Money.
Yes, Monopoly is the game for the New America.