i didn't take this picture it's on the internet
Setting the scene: D, my childhood bestie L, and her high school friend Hometown D, are all sitting around on a Friday night playing a rousing game of Monopoly. As I type this, L and Hometown D are taking the first sips.
"Dry," L says. I keep typing. "Dry," she says again. "Dry dry dry dry dry dry."
"Nice legs," says D, who isn't drinking it.
FIRST GLASS
"Oh, I -- ooh! ...Oh. Mm. Enh," I say, as I take my first sip.
I'm thinking it's kind of sweet, but L nods understandingly and says, "It's kind of sour, right?"
Oh, wait! It is kind of sour. It's very flavorful -- maybe not entirely in a good way? But it's definitely not bland! It's got a lot of taste, but not in the most subtle or elegant way.
D acquires B&O railroad. "Let me try it," he says. I give him my glass. He takes a sip. "It tastes like wine," he says, idiotically.
When I smirk, he continues: "No, this one, of all of the cheap wines we've had, tastes the most like you would expect wine to taste," he says. "You know? Everything else we've had, there's like something very clearly wrong with it. But this one's, just, like, wine. Which is good."
"I think this is the B&O railroad of wines, in that it's got body and odor," L says. She is drinking her wine out of a martini glass.
SECOND GLASS
Reader: At this point, I realize that I forgot to tell you about this particular board. It belonged to my grandmother, who was a sharp-tongued Depression survivor, and played Monopoly far more viciously than a four-year-old child really expected or deserved. For her, Monopoly was an opportunity to teach me two things: one, how to do quick mental math under the pressure of her awaiting contempt, and two, that money is everything. (I learned neither.) She lived about forty minutes from my parents' house, and so practically raised me, since they were so busy when I was growing up. During my junior year of high school she died of a brain tumor; the souvenir that I claimed from her house -- the object that, for me, was really the essence of her, this woman that I loved -- was this Monopoly board.
It's old. It looks like it's from the forties; it probably is. The fonts on the property cards and the money are different from the fonts on their contemporary counterparts; the box is taped and re-taped with duct tape.
"There should be an Alicia Keys version of monopoly," says D.
THIRD GLASS
"We didn't ever talk about our second glass," L says, while intense negotiations between D and Hometown D are going on. "I stopped tasting it."
FOURTH GLASS
WEEEEEEEEEEE
ARE NEVER EVER EVER
GETTING BAAACK TOGETHERRRR
oooohhh oooo oo oo oooo
FIFTH GLASS
my monopoly is the purples it's not as good as other people's monopolies
SIXTH GLASS
nooooooo HOMETOWN D GOT FRE PARKINGGGGGG
SEVENTH GLASS
"huhhhhhhhhhhhh," says d, having some wine
EITTH GLASS
th ewinee's all gone!!!! i'm drinking liquor goodnight everyone
love always,
maia
VERDICT: yeah it's all right, i dunno
