dots.

you know what i hate? cheaters. not the relationship kind. they are too easy to hate. i hate people who cheat at games. crosswords, video games, football – you name it.

so this one day my kid brother and i are home during the afternoon with nothing but reruns of jerry and maury when he announces we should play “dots”. you know, that game where you draw a grid of dots and then take turns connecting them to create little boxes. when you finish a box, you claim it as you own by placing your initial in it. don’t roll your eyes just yet.

my little brother... my eighteen-year-old (now almost 21) little brother... cheated at dots. who the hell cheats at dots?! and no, im not just saying it. he cheated. honestly he did. sure he claims to be skilled in the game because he used to play with his coworkers at club monaco but i figured out how he does it. what a little jerk.

he watches you. he watches how you play. where do you draw a line? whats your pattern? he is confident that there is a strategy involved in order to win this game. keep in mind we are still talking about dots.

then when he sees you struggling, he’ll offer to let you skip a turn and take two turns next time. seems innocent enough. so you stop, smile, and stupidly say “aww thanks man.” and the whole time this little freakshow has figured out some mathematical way to screw you out of boxes that belong to you. i think statistics come into play – i really dont know.

meanwhile you are grinning like a fool because you think the two turns you’re gonna get will cause you to go on a line striking frenzy. he knows this when he offers it to you. in reality your second line was meant to be his death sentence. but not anymore. all of a sudden, he’s got a hand cramp from finishing boxes. see every time you finish a box, you get to draw an additional line. if that line finishes a box, you go again. its like dominoes.

in the end he’s got more boxes than effing UPS.

stupid cheater.