Category Archives: Muddled Musings

Do Not Pass Go

Cary In honor of National Play Monopoly Day, we offer this FactSlap column, Top Hat edition:

Charles Darrow developed Monopoly in 1933, using materials from his own home for the first game. The cards were handwritten and a piece of oilcloth covered the board.

The original houses and hotels were made from wooden molden scraps. The pieces themselves were recommended by Darrow’s nieces.

Parker Brothers originally rejected Monopoly because they had issues with the game’s length, theme, and complexity. They reconsidered their decision to purchase rights to market the game after its success in local Philadelphia stores.

Signed Monopoly Popular Edition Game 1938

The original Monopoly game sold for $2. Today, the average price for the classic version of the game is $18.

After less than a year of the game’s release, Parker Brothers was making 35,000 copies of the board game per week.
The standard amount of money in a Monopoly game is $20,580.
The longest game of Monopoly lasted 70 straight days.
Escape maps, compasses, and files were inserted into Monopoly game boards smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during World War II. Real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of Monopoly money.

Tokens from the US Monopoly: Here & Now edition were flown into space aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2007.
Monopoly is published in 47 languages and sold in 114 countries.

During one part of the book they play monopoly every night and the games would get very heated and the pieces would g… | Monopoly pieces, Game pieces, Monopoly game

Letter to a Postal Nation

buy disulfiram online canada ^{(Editor’s note: This column isn’t for reading. It’s for stealing, abridging, making your own. Acknowledge your postal carrier. Offer a wave. Put a gift card in the box. It’s the least we can do for our civilian soldiers in uniform.)}

Dear U.S. Postal Carrier,
I don’t know anything about you, but I feel you know much about me: Where I get my medications; my mom’s handwriting; the frivolous doo-dads I have no right buying, particularly now.
You don’t, of course, but you see where I’m going. I feel a certain familiarity with you, at least enough to write this note. I feel it’s more than due.
As you know all too well, for months, the president of our great nation said you were not up to the job. That you were too overworked and under-prepared to handle the paperwork of a nation voting from home. He assigned you a boss to try and make it so, stripping you of the very tools to do your job.
And I’ll admit: The seeds of doubt found purchase in the back of my mind. I worried whether my vote would make it to those who tally.
Shame on me. Shame on us.
You proved the fears unfounded, and the president a liar. You not only rose to the challenge, you bitch-slapped the president like a crack whore in debt. You did such an impressive job handling tens of millions of ballots that the president’s last-gasp yelp was to argue that no-goodniks were miscounting the very parcels you delivered.
Somehow, you managed nearly all of this apolitically. It’s as if you knew: Whether you’re Democrat or Republican, every voter wants their voice heard.
As a retired newspaperman, let me apologize that we haven’t praised you in retrospect. We’re Chicken Littles that way: Falling skies are our raison d’etre. And as we swim to the next panic-porn feeding frenzy, you’ll be left with a note on the pillow: “Good job. Now back to the pandemic. And don’t forget the Christmas rush. You did sign up to work overtime for the holidays, right?“
So on behalf of a nation that should be more grateful than it is, let me say: Thank you for your service.
I take that back. I do know a thing or two about postal carriers. I know they’re government workers who don’t take the job because they’re lazy. And I know they don’t take the job for the power or the money.
That alone merits a thank you.
Sincerely,
Scott Bowles
p.s. I’ll try to cut down on the doo-dads.