Do you know how to play bunco? Here, let Tricia teach you. I love games. I love my girlfriends. I love food. I love winning money, aka “gambling.” Bunco gives me all of this and more. (I just got home from playing. So fun. Yes, I won in the “roll-off” for the kitty.)

This love of all things cards and dice started when I was a wee little sprout, watching my ma, pa and their friends fiendishly play cards. They liked playing Pit, poker (I coveted the chips. The different colors, the stacks, what did it all mean?), canasta, whatever they all agreed on. My dad’s parents loved playing kings’ corners, caroms, solitaire, Yahtzee, Pounce…

My cousins and I loved Pounce (aka “Nerts.” Why is it named this? I have no idea. All I know is we called it Pounce when I was a kid and Nerts once I grew up). Grade school, high school, college, we went from pitching pennies to obsessively playing (and cheating at) Monopoly to playing 600 and quarters and any other drinking games we could think of.

My friends and I, all through college, were especially crazy for Pounce. We would literally stay up til 4 in the morning playing. We’d take decks of cards to the bars with us, ignore the bands that were playing, and play hand after hand of cards. It was good clean fun. We tried to kick it, oh we did. Because the man I was dating and also one of my best girlfriends, H, hated Pounce. Hated, hated. They were slow is why. If you are slow at cards and dice you just die, okay?

So.

They made us promise we wouldn’t bring the cards out with us in public. We agreed, reluctantly.

Then, there we were at the bar again, and my roommate C asks, all casual, Did you, er, bring any cards? and I’m all, YESSSSSSSSS! and I whip not one but five decks of cards out of my purse and the game was ON and H just crashed her head right down on the table and whimpered quietly.

I did feel bad. Leeeeeeee. I felt badly! But we had to play!

I found this bunco group through church, when I was teaching Sunday school. See how it goes, once you become a Unitarian? Next thing, you find gamblers. It happens every time. Her sweet little adorable daughter was in my class and yelled at me, MY MOM PLAYED BUNCO ON FRIDAY! and I was all, I WANT TO PLAY BUNCO, TOO, TELL HER TO INVITE ME!

I’m low-key and casual like that. So she did, and now I’ve been subbing with their group for… I have no idea how long now. A while. It is so fun. We meet at a different house every month, always on the… what is this, second Friday? There is some pattern to it, I dunno. All I know is that they send me an e-mail and I try to go. Tonight one of the women asked me, Where have you been the last two months? And I thought, Hmm. “Was I not here? Was I at the beach?”

“Yes,” she said agreeably, “you must have been at the beach.” My bunco ladies are sooooooooo much easier than the PTA ladies. We put out a spread of food (another reason bunco kicks ass). Tonight it was…

* turkey, cream cheese and cranberry sauce roll-ups, with toothpicks
* veggie lasagna that was sooooo yummy
* popcorn chicken and those little cheesey bites, whatever they are
* dinner rolls with real butter
* sweet and sour chicken, lo mein and kung pao chicken
* all kinds of drinks (“There are some of those lizard ones. You know! The fancy ones — Sobe or whatever…” oh, yum.)
* bowls of candy all over the tables (our trademark)
* for dessert, my contribution was those pink and white frosted animal cookies that are like crack cocaine they’re so good
* a delicious lemon cake with lots of gooey frosting
* and… someone else brought cream puffs. Yes, they did.

We all save up our Weight Watchers points for like, the whole week, even those of us who aren’t technically on Weight Watchers. We’re sociable like that. We all pony up a little money, play like maniacs, talk and laugh and miss everyone who’s not there that month. They all work together for Large Government Agency. They’ve taken me under their wing, anyway, even though I don’t. I work for Large School District, which is similar, I suppose, in many ways. Then, goodnight. Home by 10 p.m.

Oh, I love bunco and my girls.