“Where are the dice?” My best friend, Amanda, stares blankly in the game cabinet, trying to find all the supplies for Bunco night while I work on setting up a third card table. We love game night. Once a month I host it at my place, and all our gaming friends come over for the fun.
Or course, “gaming” means a whole different thing to us than it does to our children. Face-to-face interaction for one. A variety of snacks for another. And of course, the alcohol. Because what game night would be complete without mimosas and margaritas? They’re made with fruit juice, which means the calories don’t count. Plus, after my first full week of classes, I need to relax and reset my brain.
“Check the drawer.” I gesture my head that direction. “I didn’t want them to get pushed to the back and the container to accidentally pop open.”
She shifts her attention and within seconds raises them in the air. “Found them. What else do you want me to get out?”
“I was thinking about Farkle and maybe Scattergories,” I grunt as I fight with the table leg.
Amanda stands there observing me, an amused smile on her face. “You okay there, Joie? Looks like that table leg is stronger than you are.”
I grunt again, pulling until it pops into place, and let my breath go. “I got one with the strongest legs I could find. We’re not having a repeat of last month’s table debacle.”
Amanda starts chuckling. “Every time I think about it, I still laugh.”
“That’s because you weren’t stuck on bottom.”
Gamers, live action or video, can get pretty competitive. Just because this group is a little older doesn’t mean we’ve become passive. Things can get heated really quick. The last time we played Bunco, Amanda and I both went for the dice at the same time. The table couldn’t hold our weight and collapsed underneath us while our friends watched in horror.
I blame the fact that it was an old table, because I refuse to believe we’re too heavy.
Amanda comes over and peers at the leg supports I’m still putting in place. “That seems really solid. But if it ends up not being able to support the weight of two grown women, we may have to consider celery and peanut butter as our regular snacks at these shindigs.”
“Well then, it better not break, because I’m not giving up those cake balls Drea brings,” I jest.
“Quick! Add more supports,” Amanda jokes, making me laugh.
Amanda and I have known each other since our boys were in middle school football. She and her husband, Jeff, have become good friends of mine. We all used to sit together at games and would trade off transporting the boys to and from practices. They’re really more like family to us than friends.
“How are your classes going anyway?” she asks, as she unfolds the plastic chairs and puts them around the tables.
“Good! I’m not enjoying taking college algebra again.” She grimaces, which is exactly how I feel. “But I am taking an educational psychology class, which I really like, and it kind of keeps my eye on the prize.”
“That’s great. I really admire you for going back to school. I have zero desire to ever step foot in a classroom again.”
“It’s kind of a culture shock, that’s for sure. I never thought of college kids as being young, but I’m so old now, they all look like babies.”
Amanda grabs the rest of the games and puts one on each table. We set it up like stations. Pick your game of choice and go for it. We’ll have a couple of intermissions, allowing people to move around and enjoy it all.
“Well yeah,” she says, opening a couple decks of cards and shuffling, “they’re literally half your age.”
I shake my head. “That just blows my mind. How did we get this old?”
“That’s life, I guess.” She shrugs. “Better not blink or we’ll be sixty.”
“No kidding.”
We meander our way into the kitchen and start pulling out our special game-night glasses. I got them for Christmas a few years ago from Isaac. Each glass has the logo of a different board game on it. I love them. But I only pull them out once a month.
“Speaking of, have you run into Isaac on campus yet?”
“No!” I vehemently shake my head. “And I don’t want to. I don’t want to be known as the football player’s mom any more than he wants to be known as the football player whose mommy followed him to school.”
Amanda chuckles again. “I didn’t say you had to interact. I just wanna hear how big both your eyes get when you run into each other and how awkward it is as you run away from each other. Cause you know that’s what’ll happen.”
“I’ve been practicing my unaffected facial expression for that moment. See?” I shoot her my best nonchalant look.
A laugh bursts out of her. “I can’t tell if you’re about to have a psychotic breakdown or are constipated.”
“Hey!” I half-heartedly complain because I’m sure she’s right. I’ve never been accused of being a good actress. Typically, what you see is what you get with my emotions.
A knock at the door and a “Hello!” yelled from the front bring us out of the kitchen and back to game-central.
“What do you have here?” I take a giant box out of our friend Brenda’s hands and carry it to the sofa.
“Phew. Thanks.” She hands Amanda a plastic bag, probably of food, that she’s also carrying. I’m hoping it’s her famous green sauce dip for tortilla chips. “I was cleaning out my closet today and found all these purses. Most of them I haven’t used more than a couple times. I figured some of you might want one. Otherwise, they’re going to Goodwill.” She plops down on the couch and begins thumbing through the goodies. “There’s some good stuff in here.”
One of the bags catches my eye, and it’s like a homing device to me. It’s black and shiny and huge. Pulling it out of the box, I open it wide and feel giddy at all the room inside. Reaching my hand in, I find my entire arm will fit inside. That means plenty of supplies will also fit. I stick my head all the way in, and when Amanda starts snickering, I realize I may be taking this a little too far.
“What are you doing there, Joie?”
“Making sure it’s perfect.” I pat down the outside, pushing all the air out and admire that there are no nicks or scratches on it. It’s in amazing condition. “Yep. This one is mine.”
“Don’t pick the first one,” Brenda argues. “Maybe there’s a better one.”
“Nope. There’s nothing better.” Seriously. This purse is exactly what I need. You can’t find them this size and of this quality anymore. Trust me. I’ve tried.
“What are you going to use it for?” Amanda seems confused by my all-consuming love of this bag.
“My new job!” I announce, eliciting another confused look. Poor Amanda. Sometimes she can’t keep up with my energy. Of the two of us, she is definitely the more subdued. Always has been.
She shakes her head just slightly. “I'm sorry, your what? I thought you quit working.”
Hiding my new treasure in the game cabinet so no one will try to steal it, I respond, “I’m picking up a little part-time job to help pay a few of my bills. Maybe have a little spending money.”
Kasey continues digging through the purses while we chat. “At the construction company? What do you think of this one?” She holds up her find for me to assess.
“White is hard to clean and once the bottom gets dirty, it’ll ruin the leather.”
“Good point.” She puts it back in the box and keeps searching for a treasure. “Where is this new career of yours?”
“At Carnival Station.”
Amanda and Brenda both stop, mid-movement, and size me up, like they’re waiting for me to say I’m kidding. “The bouncy house kids place?” Brenda finally asks.
“Yes. But I won’t actually be working for Carnival Station. I’m going to be the entertainment.”
“I’m confused,” Amanda says, looking even more baffled. “What kind of Carnival Station are we talking about here? Is it a strip club after hours or something? Because I just can’t picture you taking your clothes off for money.”
“Oh stop.” I grab a deck of cards and begin shuffling mindlessly. “It’s not a strip club. Once a week, I’ll go to the restaurant part to make balloon animals for the kids and read stories. Paint faces. Things like that.”
“That sounds kind of fun.” Brenda tosses a purse back in the box, and Amanda immediately picks it up. She really does have a lot of bags to choose from. “Does it pay well?”
“Nothing significant. But even a couple hundred dollars not taken out of my savings each month helps.”
“You did a really good job saving enough money to go to school without working. Not a lot of people would plan like you did.” Amanda holds up another find. It’s a Coach purse, a very light lavender color, straps long enough to put over your shoulder, but not too long. It’s beautiful.
I nod my head in approval, and she sits down, clearly pleased.
“I only started saving ten or twelve years ago. And thank goodness Isaac earned that scholarship. There’s no way I could’ve gone back this year if I was trying to pay for both of us.”
“He’s worked hard. He deserves it,” Amanda says with a shrug as she walks toward the front door, probably to hide her new treasure in the trunk of her car. “Now if he could pass some of that motivation off to my kid, that would be great.”
Poor Amanda. Her son, Nicholas, hasn’t fared very well in college. He decided not to play ball, instead focusing on his studies. So far, he’s been on academic probation twice and had one pregnancy test taken by his girlfriend. That’s the only time we cheered for him failing a test.
Amanda opens the door and startles. “Oh! You scared me!” she says to one of our friends who was getting ready to knock.
Several women laugh as they make their way into my house, Drea handing me a container full of cake balls. Drea is my favorite.
Within minutes, a couple dozen women gather around the various tables, plates full of snacks and drinks in their hand. Some card game is making people laugh across the room. And someone brought dominos for a rousing game of Chicken Foot in my kitchen.
But Bunco . . . Bunco is where it’s at tonight. Three tables are set up on our side of the room and the dice start to roll.
Within minutes, the fast-paced game of chance is going at full speed. We roll for 1’s. Then 2’s. By the time we move up to 3’s, we’re moving fast and no one is talking.
I watch as Amanda shakes the cubes up and drops them on the table. They bounce once, twice, three times and slide to a stop.
“Bunco!” Amanda yells, and the scramble is on, each person around our table grabbing for the dice. Brenda launches herself across the table, reaching as far as she can, with me right behind her. The upper half of my body lands next to her and a loud crack echoes around the room.
Suddenly, the room is in slow motion as the table wobbles underneath us . . .
And collapses.
Drat! I hate celery and peanut butter.