Monday afternoon, cards with the Methodists. No Mother of
Sorrows has joined us, printed invitations notwithstanding. But the four of us
don’t seem in a hurry to disband.
We have never been two only, which is a shame. I would love
to teach someone how to play Russian Bank. Sometimes we are three, when one of
us has her monthly bridge group, one of us is too long at the doctors, or one
of us, who shall remain nameless, rides the Jerr-Dan to Goodyear to have the
six year old battery replaced.
A while back I contributed a copy of Hoyle to the portable
bag of cards. We were playing by family or frat house rules, and paper,
scissors, rock is not the best solution among serious card players. A
worthwhile contribution, as we had scratched out all the rules each of us
remembered about pinochle and set out to play a game the last time there were
four of us together. While interesting, it didn’t have the intensity any of us
remembered.
Someone perused Hoyle recently, waiting for more of us to
assemble, and there it was, the missing rule. The ten is more powerful than
face cards. Our foursome has been a threesome since the lost rule was recovered,
and won’t be a foursome again until January 2nd. Then there will be
some card playing!
Every session, there are refreshments. Except for a crème filled
donut at Halloween, I’ve never indulged. Between meal snacks are deadly. But there
is such a laden table every Monday, I am coming to realize the snacks are out
to keep stock rotated.
But today, apparently, there were no goods that needed
consumed or composted. One of our number stopped at the Yum Yum Shoppe across
the street and emptied from his pockets a chocolate covered Twinkie and
unadulterated HoHo’s. The later an
oxymoron and the former—well, we’ve all read of the Twinkie unchanged over
several decades of observation.
The refreshments were offered around. He who stopped at the
Yum Yum shop selected the Twinkie, when it was turned down. That left two HoHo’s
and I declined one. The other player took a HoHo, but called his wife to see if
she would like it. In fact, he placed several calls. “Honey, it’s me. It’s an
emergency. Call me.”
