Today’s writing warm up brought to you by my grandfather. And gambling. It’s a family thing.

I realize ‘writing warm ups’ probably aren’t supposed to have back story, but when you’re supposed to write what you know and what you know is family, it takes some back-filling. Besides, who has a family that doesn’t require back story?!

Card games, much like reading a paper map, are kind of a lost art form. Past the neighborhood Bunko night, women don’t get together to play bridge every Wednesday afternoon anymore and I haven’t heard tell of a weekly guy’s poker night since before we had kids. But when your grandparents live in a cabin a mile down a dirt road in northern Michigan and Wi-Fi is 30 years or so in the future, card playing becomes the highest form of entertainment seeing as it’s the only form of entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, there were acres of woods to explore, Coke cans to shoot .22s at, berries to eat, poison ivy to trek through, but when the sun went down and the only people out in the woods were the ones on a snipe hunt, cards it was and Rummy Dummy was the game.

In my family, it didn’t matter what age you were as long as you had money for the pot. At a nickel a hand, this was high stakes gambling. By the end of a Thanksgiving vacation, you could walk out the door flush with cash – enough to buy a pack of gum and the latest MAD magazine, Tiger Beat or Archie comic for the nine-hour car ride home. This was serious, and because it was, there was no slipping cards under the table to the 8-year-old or asking around who was collecting what so the kid could win. Oh no, you sat down, you played.

Let’s pause and consider that last sentence a moment, namely the “you sat down” part. While breakfast was normally eaten on a “fend for yourself” basis in the kitchen, lunch and dinner was eaten around the dining room table, a table that would seat at least ten of us. Maybe 12. Grandma always sat at the end closest to the kitchen and my grandpa always sat at the other, closest to the bedrooms. On the side closest to the kitchen were chairs. On the side closest to the outside wall and the red telephone were two chairs and a bench reserved for grandchildren. Sitting on the bench was mildly annoying for lunch. You had to coordinate sitting down with your bench mate, pulling the bench close enough to the table to eat with your bench mate, negotiate how much real estate your bottom got versus your bench mate’s, and Heaven forbid, one of you had to get up to use the bathroom. Come dinner, however, sitting on the bench – or one particular seat on the bench – or sitting in the chair directly opposite that seat on the bench became the surefire death toll to any plans you made for that nine-hour car ride home, because the cards came out after dinner.

MURPHY’S LAW as it pertains to the after dinner game of Rummy Dummy in my family:

1. Do not sit on Grandpa’s right. He’ll pass you nothing.
2. Do not sit on Grandpa’s left. He’ll steal your dessert.

Every family has a trait that runs deep in the genes across many generations. For some, it’s a love of the theater, a commitment to uphold the law, the Force. In my family, it’s the BS gene, the ability to look another person in the eye and convince them you know exactly what you are talking about even if you have no idea. Straight face, full conviction, serious countenance, Grade-A bullshit. The BS gene is in our blood (I mean seriously, I have a lawyer and a news anchor for siblings and I write fiction. What do you expect?), and my grandfather was the master. No amount of accusation, pleading or begging would get that man to admit the plate of brownie pudding that was once yours was now sitting in front of him. No amount of cajoling, hinting or right out asking would get him to pass you anything you needed either. That man would look you right in the eye and flat out tell you the dessert was his and he really didn’t have four fours or an Ace of diamonds even though you just saw him pick it up. Sitting on either side of Grandpa was a no-win situation.

Throughout the years, us grandkids realized there was one way, and only one way, to stand a chance against Grandpa and it all came down to your napkin. My grandma was a pioneer woman. She made her own jelly, pickles and hot jars. She baked her own bread. She quilted, crochets and sewed, and one of the things she sewed was napkins. Living on a pension in the ‘70s meant there wasn’t a lot of money for extravagant expenditures and one of the ways Grandma saved money was making her own cloth napkins. To go with the napkins, Grandpa made napkin rings and branded each one with a name. The combination of napkin fabric (ice cream cones, Scotty dogs, stars, plaid) with your named napkin ring was how you found your place at the table. So, if you were the lucky one who got to set the table (yes, “got” not “had to”, “got” as in “thank goodness you had the privilege”), you could not only make sure you were sitting nowhere near Grandpa, you could also decide which one of your siblings (or both) should sit on either side of him. It was one of the cleanest, most innocent ways to completely screw over a sibling without bloodshed or getting yourself in trouble. I mean, all you did was set the table.

My grandpa passed away in my early teens. To this day, I can still see his eyes crinkle at the corners in a smile and smell the tobacco of his pipe. Every time I sit down with my family to play cards or eat dessert, I think of him. And, if I’m doing my job as a mother correctly, upholding his legacy.

Yes, that’s my piece of pie. No, it isn’t yours. I don’t know what happened to yours. This one is most definitely mine. And no, I am not collecting spades.

….or at least I wasn’t….