All My Gettings

I am absurdly competitive. This might surprise some people who don't know me all that well. They're thrown off the scent by the fact that I'm almost cripplingly adverse to conflict and by the apparent lack of anything resembling drive or ambition in my life. But, put me in a game, doesn't matter what game, and I want to win. Badly. I don't cheat, but will do anything within the rules to be the one wearing the laurels at the end. And, I talk a lot of trash, even when said trash has been proven to be a totally inaccurate depiction of reality.

I have three things that save me from being the kind of win-hungry jerk you hate to play games with. First, once the game components are packed up, the emotions from the game are gone. My push to win doesn't spill over into other aspects of my life. It stays neatly on the shelf to be unpacked the next time we play. Second, I'm a good loser. I don't mope, break egg timers or come up with my lame reasons why I lost. Usually, I just make fun of myself. And lastly, I'm nothing approaching a master of games. I lose. A lot. And often. Winning is by far the exception. In fact, my sister, brother-in-law and I have a theory that it is impossible for me to win a game in their house. And we have quite a load of data to base that on. So, you see, this aggressive streak of mine is all in good fun and rarely harmful to relationships.

At any rate, my competitiveness explains why today, instead of reading the approximately 300 pages I need to polish off before Monday or even getting started on my math and literature paper that has me paralyzed or devoting as much time as I should have to planning my sister's cocktail party, I spent a half hour besting Twirl's score at Bejeweled Blitz. Of course, now I have him to accuse when I fail my classes. Since, after all, the most fun game of all is the blame game. And, I'm dashed cunning at it.