Author: Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Monopoly, pivot, pivot!

· Leave a comment ·

Jackie Pick's avatarJackie Pick

“For Pete’s sake, Eunice, cheer up.”

We were not much of a board game family growing up. Oh, occasionally we’d pull out Pictionary or Scrabble, but more often than not, “family down time” was for individual pursuits, most likely all of us reading somewhere in the same house. Board games were usually like this:

Didn’t stop us from trying every six months or so. Almost always on vacation. Almost always not worth it.

So when my children ask to play a game –always when I’m feeling complete eviscerated by life, always when I’m exhausted, and always Monopoly – I groan.

Inwardly, I mean, because I usually say, “Ok.” If I’m lucky, I can put it off until some unspecified “later” – they always claim it, though. On rare days, they forget they asked me and get caught up in other things. That right there is the magic of parenting.

Usually…

View original post 766 more words