Eternal Candyland . . . Hell on Earth

Finally, after a pause long enough to dig the Panama Canal, she moved her game piece, looked at me with a gap-toothed smile and said the words that made my blood run cold: “Your turn, Mom.”

My daughter, like millions of children before her, loved Candyland. It was her first real game, but she had no one to play with her. Her younger brother, still a toddler, submitted willingly to her pleas for an opponent, but he didn’t quite grasp the mechanics. Instead of drawing cards and moving his game piece, he stomped around the board in his footie pajamas, Godzilla-like, sending game parts flying.

This display of irreverence didn’t please my daughter, a world-class Candyland enthusiast, who fully understood the heartbreak of becoming lost in the Lollipop Woods or stuck in the Molasses Swamp. She was the master of cutthroat Candyland. Street Candyland. Guerilla Candyland. Candyland in the Hood.

She wasn’t always this way. Her first Candyland game entered the house as a gift from my brother. He dropped it and ran off into the night. I’m certain his gift was less about celebrating my daughter’s birthday and more revenge for some well-thrown childhood snowballs.

Up until that time I had a normal, sweet little girl who occupied herself with stripping baby dolls and brushing their hair until it was frizzy. Her preference for ratty-haired naked baby dolls didn’t faze me at all. At least I didn’t have to participate.

Then Candyland came along and I discovered the truth about my child – the curly-haired minx who could slay me with her smile was really the Minnesota Fats of the Candyland world.

And so we played. We played in the morning and we played at night. We played Candyland before dinner and after. We played it on weekends. We played it when we were happy and when we were sad and we played it when I was closer to sound asleep than awake, which – when I played Candyland – was all the time.

Elizabeth dumped her teddy bear. Forgotten were the plastic dishes and fake rubber food. Her doll house stood dark and deserted, her other toys sadly neglected. And I was drafted as her co-dependent.

As our games progressed, my child turned into a cutthroat competitor who gave her mother no slack. She’d cackle whenever I fell into the dastardly hands of Lord Licorice and liked nothing better than shoving me into the dreaded Molasses Swamp while she hot-footed it to the Candy Palace. In short, she became addicted to winning at Candyland. 

The better she became at schlepping her gingerbread man around the Rainbow Trail and past the fearful Gooey Gumdrops, the more she wanted to play. I didn’t mind at first. All the child-rearing experts say playing games imbues a child with valuable skills. I was a good mother most of the time and certainly wanted my child to be chock-full of those valuable skills. So I played Candyland. And played and played and played. Eventually, Candyland took over my life – or at least the part of it I spent with my child.

So, out of desperation to end the joyless hold Candyland had on me (and also there was a really good movie on TV that night) I was inspired to do something evil to end the game: I cheated.

It was my turn and I pulled a single orange and told her it was a double and quickly replaced the card under the deck. Apparently I don’t do poker face well. Elizabeth extracted my card from the bottom of the pile, looked at it and very deliberately shoved my gingerbread man back a couple of spaces. I spent the rest of that game waiting for the game police to show up and handcuff me to her bed.

Being an optimist, not to mention a neophyte in raising children, I thought she would eventually grow sated of Candyland and swear off. And she did, only it took nearly a year for her obsession to draw to a close – a year with me sitting on the floor opposite her.

But it was time well spent. Elizabeth learned many important things by playing that game. Things like how many rounds of Candyland in a row it takes to homogenize her mother’s brain. Or that it’s possible to play a board game with someone who’s nearly a corpse.

Yes – all those life skills she picked up playing Candyland are definitely paying off now that she’s abandoned Queen Frostine forever and  moved on to more complicated, challenging games. Unfortunately, though, I remain her partner of choice.

Now, where was I? Oh yes. No, I don’t have any two’s.

Go fish.