Symmetry

It is true, mouse and I fit together well.  Together we balance nicely. We also enjoy playing games, not mind or sexy ones (although they can have their place), but specifically board games.  Odd?  I think not.

One of mouse's favorite games and one she rarely loses at is Monopoly.  It is partly luck, the roll of the dice, but it is also strategy.  It is a game mouse rarely loses at.  Even if the luck or the dice do not work in her favor, she will hang on, quietly waiting for a misstep.  There it is, I roll and move my piece the number of squares and I find myself situated on her property with a hotel and very little capital.  While she may only own those three properties I end up having to mortgage something to keep her at bay.  I try to distinguish the best option (far away from where her piece lays).  Yet somehow she will make around the board without landing on single piece of my property.  She will pick off the other players acquiring their holdings as her own, before too long we are the only two left.  Her small fortune of hotels and houses seem to dominate one side of the board.  I am left bemused wondering how does she do that?

Sure I may own something in between, a utility or railroad, but it is unlikely that I will land on it.  She smells it, like a vulture circling but never grows impatient.  Once while I was in jail, she landed on Boardwalk, which I had three hotels and could not collect a dime.  I had miscalculated in not paying my bond, assuming that jail would be safer.  Then while I am chiefly unaware, she moves in for the first  of many kills.  I will land on a property she owns and not have the cash to pay her.  I must mortgage something maybe more than one property.  She will then suggest that perhaps I could simply give up a property instead.  This is always toward the end of the game when I have not yet realized that I have truly lost, but at the same time, nearly ready to call it a night.  I think to myself I will win it back, so with some reticence I hand over the property.   She bats her green eyes at me and before I realize it, she is quickly acquiring my properties.

I scrutinize each move she makes, analyzing, trying to discern her secret.

I have only one answer that suits me.

She cheats.