My gaming group played last night. We played two games of RoboRally and one of Settlers of Catan, and I didn’t even put up a challenge for anyone in any of the games.

In the first RoboRally game, I didn’t score a single goal before someone won. In the second game, I served mostly as a punching bag for one other player (the player who ended up winning the game). In the Settlers game, I never had more than 2 points — everyone starts at 2 points, and 10 points wins.

Sure, I made some poor choices here and there (that happens to everyone) but my losses in these games was mostly due to really, really bad luck. Even the other players said so — they were just as amazed as I was at how badly luck was working for me. Although I had an enjoyable evening, being with my friends, it really sucks to barely show a presence in a game you’re playing. These three games: I could have sat out of them and it wouldn’t have changed the outcomes. The game play wouldn’t have missed me.

Luck just hates me. And the feeling is mutual.

Bullgrit

I used to be a big library fan. I didn’t really start to appreciate the library until college, but then I came to love it. Then once I had a decent career, and could afford to buy books instead of just check them out, the book store became my fave over the library.

For the past 10 years or so, I have rarely gone to the library. Cowgrit takes our boys each week, and she’s even the “book mom” for Calfgrit8’s second-grade class. That means she picks up a list of subjects the class will be covering over the next week or so, and she goes to the public library to check out a bunch of books on those topics.

Last night, we all went to the library as a family to pick up the books the class will need for the next week or so. Between the class books and our boys’ own choices of books to read at home, we had probably two dozen books. When Cowgrit and the Calves were up at the counter getting checked out, I wandered over to the science fiction shelves to see if something jumped out at me to read.

I ended up in the graphic novel section and found a couple of old X-Men compilations to check out. When the librarian was scanning in my choices, and scanned my library card, she told me I had $3.50 in fines.

“What?” I said. “Wow. I haven’t checked out a book in a couple years.”

The librarian checked her computer, “Yeah, it was in oh-seven.” Interestingly, the late book was a comic book compilation: Wolverine from the 1980s. “You don’t have to pay the fine now, you can do it later,” she offered.

I checked my wallet and found only a single one-dollar bill. “OK, I’ll have to pay it later.”

Wow. I go to the library just once every couple of years, and I still build up fees. This supports my choice of usually just buying books from a store.

Bullgrit