Pass go, recollect childhood

Walking through the streets of campus, I am often confronted by friends and admirers who ask… Walking through the streets of campus, I am often confronted by friends and admirers who ask me why I became an economics major when my chiseled body would have easily carried me into a career of underwear modeling.

It’s a great question, for which I have an equally great answer: For one, people don’t know as much about it as, say, biology or mathematics. Because of this, I can successfully twist economics for personal gain (“Simple economic theory states that you should go out with me”).

The subject is rich in super-long words like “heteroskadasticity” that make me sound intelligent when used in conversation. To be honest, though, I chose my major on an even more absurd premise than the two mentioned above: I loved the Monopoly board game as a kid and figured that any field that can produce entire books on monopolies was worth studying for the rest of my life.

Back in the day, Monopoly was the default fallback, the uninspired but adequate activity that could always be counted upon to entertain after eating mud and throwing sticks at squirrels had gotten boring. Moreover, my parents loved Monopoly, which, unlike assaulting unsuspecting woodland creatures, taught valuable life lessons about finance, cooperation and negotiation.

Today, however, it strikes me as odd that anything good or wholesome can be associated with a game whose ultimate goal is the financial destruction of those around you. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the satanic spawn of Parker Brothers has destroyed more friendships than both alcoholic transgressions and the entire institution of dating.

My own Monopoly box is buried Jumanji-style in the bowels of my garage, so I can’t check firsthand, but Wikipedia confirms that the game is best played by those ages 8 and above. Ah, to be 8 again. Really, it’s the perfect age to feel the burning shame of owning a battered original Monopoly – or worse, Monopoly Junior – when your classmates are proudly showcasing the gold-plated, diamond-studded deluxe versions that they bought from Tiffany’s.

You’re not old enough to do anything about it, but just old enough to let the thought fester in your mind for a decade or so. When I had the original version, they had Deluxe. Ten years later, when I bought Deluxe, they got Pitt-opoly. When I was scouring eBay for the board to beat all boards, they were out getting girlfriends and having social lives. It was all very tragic.

The selection of the game pieces was always the first move of the game. Those silver little pieces were your coat of arms for the duration of the game: They were an extension of you, your history, your ambitions and your very soul. Selection was a pretty critical juncture, as everyone was acutely aware of what each game piece represented: The dog was sub-human, the thimble was womanly, the wheelbarrow is sexually repressed, etc. The mad scramble for the stallion heralded the beginning of game, the loss of sanity for the next couple hours and, for all intents and purposes, temporary reprieve from any societal limitations.

Monopoly represented utter lawlessness in the empire of children. Left to their own devices, children had to bicker, brawl and sometimes kill in order to establish their version of the rules as law of the land. When any of these rules came into conflict, the strongest and most manipulative individual (read: not me) tormented the weaker ones (read: me) until subjugated players tearfully denied having ever followed any other rules besides the leader’s and blubbered that indeed, God Himself commanded his children to play the “right” way.

Even then, no promise, no commitment, no agreement was sacred. Back in the day, I routinely backstabbed my friends for monetary gain. Monopoly was more than just a game, but rather an outlet for people to take cold, cruel revenge on those they secretly despised. To this day, my fondest memory is that of watching my best friend mortgage everything he owned to pay rent on my Park Place hotel.

Monopoly was a rite of passage from childhood into pre-teen corruption. It’s where we learned to steal money from the bank – a talent, I’d like to add, I never extended or applied beyond the realm of bedroom board games.

Though we never learned to swear while playing Monopoly – that was the exclusive right of public education – we certainly were afforded enough opportunities during game play to test out our newly acquired vocabulary. We fine-tuned our ability to blackmail our peers (“Lick the toilet or pay me my $1,000”) and hurl unwarranted insults on each other’s mothers.

And even though we eventually emerged, psychologically scarred and emotionally bruised, the effects continuing long beyond the completion of the game. Many broken relationships and family estrangements have arisen from unresolved Monopoly issues.

Lately, the once thriving practice of duels and sword fights has suffered under public scrutiny, so the only conclusive way to settle matters of honor is to engage in additional games of Monopoly.

And thus begins the vicious cycle: A fight between brothers escalated into the Civil War, which snowballed into the Crash of 1929, which mutated into the evils that are Pitt’s general education requirements, which ultimately produced this travesty of column.

But I needn’t explain further: It’s really just simple economics.

Go directly to jail, do not pass go, but be sure to e-mail Ravi at rrp10@pitt.edu.