Looney Tunes Dominoes

Being the only child at family get togethers was a double edge sword. Sure, I received all the attention to begin the day, but that also meant that when the attention shifted elsewhere, I was left to play alone. Most times, I just sat quietly and watched.

As far as I can remember, my parents always had sets of Spanish playing cards, and dominoes around the house. During these family parties, I would watch as the adults would gather around the table after dinner and dessert had been served and observe as they drank, laughed and loudly played their games. They always looked like they had so much fun.

My favorite was the dominoes. Watching the adults play dominoes completely mesmerized me. The game fascinated me. The little tiles looked like bricks with dots, and they could stand on their own, but 3 year old me couldn't quite grasp the rules.

My dad seeing my interest offered to teach me the rules. It seemed simple enough, but watching the adults play so fast, while loudly telling jokes that went over my head, something was lost in the translation.

During one of our regular trips to the Aqueduct Race Track Flea market, my dad discovered the solution:  Looney Tunes Dominoes. This was a set of red plastic dominoes, which substituted pictures of my favorite WB characters in place of the dots.

We got home and immediately opened the box to play a game. Suddenly it all made sense to me. Match the faces, and be first to finish my tiles. I was really good at that. Too good it seemed, as I began to beat my dad continuously. My father's response? Cheat. He insisted that Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd was the same character when it was his turn, but two different characters when it was my turn.

Trying to argue with his regarding his logic led to his declaring he no longer had time to play dominoes with me. I asked my mom to play, but she was legitimately busy, with taking care of the house and making dinner while my dad on the other hand was watching a Yankees game on TV.

This taught me three things:

1.) Never argue with my dad especially when he's wrong.
2.) Always let my dad win no matter what.
3.) You can build things with dominoes when no one will play with you, and that's much more fun anyway.