Family game nights on a Friday night is the reincarnation of hell in this earthly world. Every Friday night, we’d sit together with a rotation of board-games to play.

This week it was Ludo, and last week it was Monopoly. Believe me when I say that the gamblers on our impromptu casino table were no less guilty of balling on that income tax than those Indian IRS callers.

Eight year old me was a sore loser. And a bad sport.

Everyone was older than me and better than me at every damned board-game we’d play.

Board-games turned into bored games for me, as I sat on the table with mom, dad, my sister and neighborhood friend-turned-enemy, Monty — only to lose every Friday.

But the week before had my limits crossed. I gambled away my life savings to Monty — what was left of my Beyblade collection — after he drove me to the brink of homelessness.

It was double or nothing, baby.

And so I devised a plan for this week’s Ludo game. I was so gonna motherfucking win and demolish Monty.

The morning of the big night, we bought a Ludo board from the dollar store, made out of thinned cardboard.

We played all of our games on a metallic family-sized table, just like this one, which only brought a cheesier grin to my face.

It wasn’t until evening rolled buy, that everyone had begun mentally preparing themselves for this esteemed night.

Dad was fast asleep on the couch, and it took a nudge or fifteen to wake him up. Eventually, he came to his senses and soon enough, we had begun yet another round of family game night.

Everyone took their seats, as Monty set down the Ludo counters with a sly grin on his face. Counters like these, but a metallic filling underneath them.

And so naturally, the counters stuck pretty well to the table, allowing for them to easily be slid across the board.

But straight from the commentary box, the bells had rung and the roars of the crowd settled in.

“DING DING DING! FIGHT!”

The dining room light dimmed in synchronous manner to the building tension. My nose had filtered through mom’s delirious food trap from the kitchen nearby.

“I get the first roll!” my sister snarled, snatching one of the die from Monty’s reach. Nobody complained. Everybody was too ‘in the zone’ to distract themselves with a fit of whining.

She took both, and rolled the dice. One and one. She moved two steps out with her first counter. I mentally calculated the amount of steps she took, to ensure that she didn’t cheat.

Sweet irony. Oh, sweet irony.

Going clockwise, I was the last to get my share of the dice. I had to put up a stoic expression, but deep down, for every ‘tick’ of the clock, my heart beat twice.

The dice reach me. I wriggled my hands in a fit of nervousness and excitement what was to soon unfold. Four and three. I made the move.

The ticks and the tocks of the clock. I nervously took a peek of the clock from my peripheral vision, and made out that 20 minutes had passed.

I was two counters down, and Monty matched that amount. At this point, however, everyone else was out of the equation for their Ludo soldiers had been martyred in the middle of warfare.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. That was all I could hear. The crowd went silent. Commentators seemed to be out of breath from excitement, for there was no chit-chat from the microphones.

My eyes narrowed on Monty and his counter pieces. I looked back and forth between the two, studying his slide of hands.

There was no way in God’s grace that I was gonna lose to Monty. He was coming after me and my glass marbles with no remorse.

I kicked the foot of my sister, sitting on my left, and facing Monty. I then kicked myself with my other foot, and howled in pain.

I scapegoated my sister, before the two of us tag-teamed Monty into the oblivion of hatred. We all started arguing, and chaos ensued on the table.

I sadistically smiled inside, and, while arguing, took one of these knockoff bucky ball magnets out of my right pocket.

Arguing into the face of the demonic Monty, I slammed one hand over the board. And the other, under the board, as it navigated its way to my the counter closest to home.

Eventually, dad intervened and got us all to calm down. I did quite easily, but freaking Monty and my sister were still at it.

I didn’t mind. I sat down, and slowly, inched my counter one step closer to making it home.

I continued to do so for a bit. Through laughter, physical and stinky distractions, as well as provoked arguments, my third counter made it home.

Soon enough Monty’s third one did, too. But alas, my fourth counter was halfway home. I continued my tactics through loud burps, storm-trooper killing farts, and occasionally blaming Monty for allegedly cheating.

Five minutes later, I made it. I won!

The crowd went crazy, chanting my name through all crannies and nooks in my dining room. Light closed in on the dining room, like two faces of a book, as the commentators rambled on about my greatness.

I sat there with a smug look, as Monty rolled his eyes. He threw his bag of marbles at me. My sly grin only grew bigger.

That Friday night, my fourth counter made it home. And Monty? Oh, he ran across the floor, took the stairs, and held back his tears.

I bet he cried himself to sleep in fetus position.

I haven’t seen him ever since. I moved out of that apartment a month later. And recently, into a new house. While unpacking everything, in a little box, I found this:

Monty, if you ever read this, I hope you’re doing well and your Beyblades are broken.