Relaxing Deceptions - part two

This might have been when I arrived at the age of Pick-Up-Sticks. Remember those? A brightly colored tall can held a few dozen fat tooth-pick like sticks, except they were very long sticks, a fat group that easily filled a child's hand.They used to be wood sticks, but now they are made of plastic. We always played on the floor, standing tall with raised hand to dump them out. Starting as a group they'd fall into immediate chaos, most landing in a zig-zag pile, others laying singly. Then, carefully, we'd try our "skill" at using one stick to ever  slowly, so slowly, move another stick out away from the others, but without moving anything else! We'd hold our breath, so air wouldn't make others "accidentally" move. And when they did, as most times they would, the player would even yell "that was an accident!"  The truth was though, it was next to impossible to NOT have another stick move, stuck in that imbroglio as they were! But, how could we kids know that fact! No, the "game" became an obsession, trying with all our might to now make these items NOT move, or at least make them move HOW we wanted them to move (while NOT moving any others!). It wasn't an accident that we couldn't do it; the obsession to try was because we couldn't make those damn sticks do what we wanted.  And because we couldn't win!                

Pick-Up-Sticks is like the old game "House of Cards".  But, I think the card name is more HONEST!  You know by the name what will win! You already KNOW that the cards WILL move, no matter how steady you make your hand or how you brace it. The house WILL sway when only one-story high, it WILL fall no matter how hard you held your breath!  It WON'T be a sturdy house, it WON'T let you add new "rooms" or "floors", and it WON'T be any different when it falls than those fake-flakes on Santa's shoulders, the silvery-beads to fill eyes, or the jumbled mess of Pick-Up-Sticks after falling from a 3 foot tall person.    [continued next entry]