The title is my lame attempt at humor on Nothin' Special's behalf. (and all her friends who may have come to our blog in an effort to determine who we really are in her life)
But, seriously, I have a question. It need not be answered except by those who really have an answer for me. My question is this: Am I the only idiot who really enjoys winning Spider Solitaire, medium difficulty? If you don't consider yourself an idiot and yet you enjoy Spider Solitaire (any difficulty level), please tell me. Sometimes I feel so alone out here. I spend all day long on the computer at work, and the first thing I want to do when I get home is play a few (this is an understatement on my part) rounds of Spider Solitaire. Is that weird? Is it just me? It is so, so satisfying to win at something. Fireworks go off and everything! I used to get just as thrilled with the easy level of difficulty. And with Minesweeper--maximum number of mines. And regular solitaire. And Freecell. And Hoyle's Backgammon; although I'm convinced the computer cheats there. I even got great enjoyment out of Rat Poker (that must date me quite a bit).
Come to think of it, I love to win games. Period. I hate Monopoly. Dont ask me to play. I hate Battleship, too. Can you guess why I don't like those games? I don't win. My ego loves to play Scrabble and Boggle, because I'm a good speller, and I'm quick at seeing words where there's only a jumble of letters. Don't get me wrong. I love a challenge, and I don't have to win every time. But I don't like games that take too much thought or strategy against an opponent other than myself. I don't mind losing once in awhile, but the consistent losses at Monopoly have soured me against that game. Battleship and chess--same thing. My husband knows how to win chess in three moves. He's told me what those moves are, but for the life of me, I can never remember them. It just doesn't seem all that important to me. He hates to play Boggle with me, and Scrabble just frustrates the heck out of him. "Whaddya mean 'geron' isn't a word? It looks like a word to me!" Sigh.
And speaking of being a good speller, I, too, know that 'a lot' is two words. I know the difference between 'then' and 'than', 'affect' and 'effect', 'your' and 'you're'. I try really hard not to judge people who don't use them correctly, especially in emails. What really bothers me, though, is when I recognize I'm not getting paid as much as someone who isn't as good as I am. How do such bad spellers and poor grammarians (is there such a thing?) get ahead in life?
I love puzzles, too. I probably love puzzles and riddles best of all because it is usually just me working to come up with the answer. I'm always a little jealous and a little irritated with people who figure it out before me. I get especially irritated when they brag about it or announce the answer before I've figured it out. Where's the fun in that? Those people are not my friends. I have a friend who has turned me on to an online puzzle/riddle game and he is not like that. He is the kind of friend who gets just as much fun out of watching me trying to figure it out for myself as I have fun working with him to solve a riddle together.
In the same way, jigsaw puzzles can be done with friends, but only if they let me be me. I worked a jigsaw puzzle with a particularly close friend just the other day, and I must confess, I bragged a little about the way I approach a puzzle. Good grief! It was our first time together working a jigsaw puzzle, and it was an eye-opener for me about myself. Our approach is very different, yet we worked well together, I thought. We'll see how it goes as the puzzle comes together. Life lessons can be learned by sitting closely with someone working on a jigsaw puzzle. For instance, I have a sister-in-law who grabs a piece and begins trying it every which way hoping it'll fit somewhere. I don't work jigsaw puzzles with her anymore. There must be something about genetics, though, as I could sit with any of my siblings and have a great time. We did a lot of puzzles as I was growing up, and even though we are unalike in many ways, in this way, we are the same: quiet, diligent, thoughtful puzzle-piecers. We would never force a piece 'just because'. We would be looking at the 'innies' and 'outies' of the piece and the overall picture before even attempting a joining. There must be a life lesson there, don't you think?
PSS