World War II takes 3 hours, ends quite differently

A couple years ago I broke down and bought the kids an Xbox 360, reluctantly and grumbling, after the contraption had already been out for a while and “all their friends had one.”

They got me with the streaming thing. Apparently, I could set it up so I could watch my Netflix movies directly on my computer, which was good because I’d decided that cable was a waste of money and had it turned off (300 channels and I was occasionally watching Nat Geo, History Channel, Discovery or Animal Planet. In the winter. If there wasn’t somewhere to go. If I didn’t have anything to do outside. Which is almost never.)

So I dragged the dumb thing home, unpacked it and set to immediately getting confused over the connections. Finally got that figured out and then totally lost my mind getting it set up — IP addresses, gateways on my router, blah blah blah. Normally this is something I’d turn over to the kids, but they were all off somewhere. I finally got exasperated and Glenny stepped in, with the help of some phone calls to our oldest son, and got it going. Great. Now I could watch all my exciting documentaries that the kids love so much — Oh! A special on the Japanese midget submarines during the attack on Pearl Harbor! When I watch TV, I normally find myself alone.

Anyway, I had this thing for less than one year when our stupid fat cat, Thomas, decided to jump on it. He was always doing this and I was always shooing him off. But this time, nobody was in the living room. So, he proceeded to get all nice and cozy on it. In the process, he let his paw dangle over the touch-sensitive button that ejects the disc tray. As soon as one of my boys came into the living room and yelled at him, fat cat tried to stand and jump off the now-ejected tray, which — of course — broke under his weight. No more Xbox 360. I tried calling around for repair and no dice. Apparently, I’m out the $300-plus and now my kids expected me to go buy another one. No. No way. Stupid cat.

That was last summer and guess what? Still no new Xbox! In the fall it’s cross-country. Winter brings wrestling and basketball. Spring is track and my daughter does karate year-round. In the summer we are usually out exploring Alaska, fishing, etc. With all that going on, I just didn’t see the need.

Lately, my boys have been bugging about games. “It’s cold, it’s windy, there’s no sports this weekend and we’re bored, Dad! We need to get a new Xbox!”

Still a stubborn “no!” but I was getting more annoyed by the day with the idea that without something electronic to keep them entertained they didn’t know what to do with themselves. It’s at times like this that I think an EMP over Alaska sounds like heaven. (For those of you scratching your head, that stands for electromagnetic effect. Commonly associated with nuclear detonation, it can actually be triggered by many things. It’s a huge wave of energy that ruins anything and everything electronic. It’s also called The Compton Effect. How cool is that?)

So I finally turned to my children and said, “Really? We have an entire closet full of games, but since they don’t require batteries or the Internet you’re not interested?”

It was like a second Christmas. Apparently, they had forgotten all about them. These days my kitchen table, coffee table and the bedroom floors are covered with board games. “Scrabble,” “Monopoly,” “Battleship” — all brand new again and exciting. A few weekends ago, after much begging, I gave in and let my two high-school boys break out “Axis & Allies.”

If you’re not familiar with this game, the board is large enough to take up an entire kitchen table with two leaves in. There are several hundred small pieces representing tanks, infantry, anti-aircraft guns, fighter planes, bombers, battleships, transports, cruisers, submarines and production plants. There is a small board where you track your industrial production and income. There is a third board just used for combat. The players control the United States, the UK, Italy, Germany, Russia and Japan. The rulebook is quite thick and the whole thing takes at least 20 minutes to set up. In previous years, this was an all-weekend game that would begin on Friday night and could last clear until Sunday. My brother would come over and spend the weekend playing with us. Glenny stopped playing years ago because of all the work that went into playing and we just sort of forgot about it.

The main goal every time we play is beat dad. Nobody is ever on my side and yet I had never been beaten. It has been a long, long time since we played and now that the kids are older this would be the year they creamed me. I got comfortable, settled in and prepared for my weekend. As usual, I had to be the Axis and they would be the Allies soundly beating me. The smack talk was on thick before the first dice had even been rolled.

But this time, World War II went quite differently. The U.S. was never able to get a fleet across either ocean (sorry Austin), the UK was never able to create and keep a navy (sorry Justin) and Russia was annihilated by Germany from the west and Japan from the east (again, sorry Austin). Oh, and Italy harassed the heck out of everybody. And the weekend-long game? Took me three hours.

Not this time, guys. Guess dad remains undefeated. Maybe I should teach your little sister, Portia, how to play so I can have some competition. Better luck next time, but hey, it’s much better than getting all glassy eyed playing a stupid video game, right?

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.