Funny money

I'll be honest, growing up, I pretty much hated Monopoly. It took forever, you had to pay attention, and there were random details involved — like paying mortgages, whatever those were. I come from a big game-playing family, but we tended to lean toward games like National Geographic Explorer, Taboo, and Mille Bourne. My husband however, he come from a family that doesn't play games, but when they do, it is Monopoly. And they care who wins. Over the last 20 years or so, he and I have played the game together, and at first it ended in frustration. I wanted to give up when the game got boring, I never bought property, and I just, really, didn't care. But when our kids got to game playing age, we occasionally got out the game because my son inexplicably liked it, and after listening to my hubby explain the game, its purpose, and how to win, guess what? It is kind of fun. It can still get long, and I am still am the first to trade properties to make it end sooner, but still, I see the value in it. Turns out I didn't really know how to play, and needed to be told why I would want to. With that kind of history, you can possibly see why the game holds a special interest for me now. I still can't name what the tokens are though, because, although it is slightly embarrassing to admit this to you, we play on a limited edition Star Wars board that was given to us as a gift. So usually, my token is one of the leftovers after Leia, Han, and Luke are snapped up by the rest of my family. But I listened with interest as the company decided to have poll to retire a piece and replace it. I am not really surprised the Iron got the boot. While my kids actually do the ironing in my house (because I hate doing it, and for some reason I don't understand, they love it), I am guessing ironing is becoming a thing of the past as fabrics become increasingly wrinkle-resistant and workplaces become more casual. But I was surprised by the cat replacement. My first thought went to the crazy cat people that sometimes bombard the internets, and perhaps they stuffed the ballot box. But for whatever the reason, the cat is a nice symbol that isn't going to go out of style, and even though we already have a dog symbol, which in my mind makes the cat superfluous, I don't think the robot would have been better. And although you may know this, I was interested to learn the company has changed up the tokens in the past: In the early 1950s, the lantern, purse and rocking horse were removed from the game. They were replaced by the dog, horse and rider, and wheelbarrow.