I'm all for helping out the Marines, but seriously. This is just too much.
It's Thanksgiving, and my niece, who is a Marine, brought
home two other Marines with her for the holiday. First, let me say they are three of the
nicest young women anyone might ever hope to meet. Second, let me assure you these women can
single-handedly beat just about anyone's ass as they have muscles of steel and
the true grit that goes with their military calling.
When we get the message that dinner is going to be about another
fifteen minutes (translation: Settle in
for a while; the turkey's not done yet), I head to the game table with two
of my kids and another relative to play a rabid game of Yahtzee. The Texas Marine hasn't played Yahtzee
before, but we discover she knows poker.
If you know poker, you know the hierarchy and basic principles of
Yahtzee, so we pull her into the game and get her all set up.
The first roll on the table is by the relative, who scores a
Yahtzee almost immediately. My son
follows with a full house. Then the
Marine goes and starts out her score with something equally impressive, a small
straight. My daughter gets on the board
filling in the top portion of the score sheet, three-of-a-kind of anything from
aces to sixes, and my turn is about as exciting as hers.
We go round and round the card table like this for several
more turns until all workable spots are filled in, including the chance spots,
and I am forced to take the first zero.
I put it in four of a kind because even if I do get four of a kind, I
can put it into three of a kind. Booyah.
As we're checking our progress, we realize that the Marine is wiping the
table with us. She who has never played
Yahtzee before is suddenly kicking our collective butts, even the relative who
started out with the fifty-point roll.
For a fleeting moment, I start having flashbacks of my
grandfather who always claimed he didn't know the rules of Hearts then would
shoot the moon and win the game, all the while playing dumb. I am beginning to suspect that maybe we are
being played and what we have on our hands is a bona fide shark. But when I look at the officer, she is
clearly having a good time, clearly engaged in learning the game, and there
isn't a penny of money exchanging our hands.
She is quite simply having some terrific beginner's luck. And, to be perfectly frank, the rest of us
totally suck at this game at the moment.
The final scores are tallied and announced, and it is clear
that not only did I score the worst of the five of us, but the Marine
out-scored me by more than one hundred points.
Presently there is an announcement:
Dinner is served. Good thing because I'm not sure I could stand
another ass-whomping like the one I just got.
Honestly, though, and without any pomp nor circumstance, I
appreciate the brave people who serve in our Armed Forces, and it is a great privilege
and an absolute pleasure to share our day with these fantastic women. We have many military vets in the family, and
it is because of them we are able to sit around the table and play Yahtzee with our
families while prepping the Thanksgiving meal.
To American military personnel everywhere, I thank you. To my niece and her mates, Semper Fidelis. It is an honor to break bread with you.
