It's All Just Really Chutes and Ladders

Last night I had the privilege of hanging out with three guys that are close to my heart. They might as well be my brothers, considering one of them is. On the outside, the evening looked normal-the drive in, Denny’s…some may even consider that Litchfield tradition. But, as the storm swept in as the credits started to role for the last movie, we all cloistered around a booth at the blessed 24 hour restaurant that has come to be the home of many beautiful late night conversations.

For the record, this conversation came up because Andy and Tim ordered milk shakes, and as any good Denny’s going customer knows, not only do you receive a milk shake in a glass, but you also receive the goodness in the silver glass used to make and pour the milk shake, commonly known as ‘the extra.’ The boys got off on a kick trying to compare ‘the extra’ to things in life. “It’s like getting a bag of 40 pizza rolls and getting 42.” “It’s like wow.” And then it was said: “It’s like winning at chutes and ladders.”

My brother’s analogy of the summer.

That every boy seems to agree with…..wholeheartedly. Imagine boys laughing and going crazy before other guys finish sentences because they agree so much with what is being said—this is the magnitude of how much this metaphor resounds with all boys.

Chutes and Ladders: the game of life….more specifically, the game of life as dictated by women. According to the boys, you can’t avoid the game and it all just basically boils down to the fact that men are ruled by the basics and women are ‘anti-basic.’

The Basics: food, sleep, the opposite sex, and pride. Men have accepted the fact that their lives are ruled by the basics. They have to have these things in their lives. They are also willing to forgo one of the basics in order for another one of the basics to be fulfilled: for example, I guess I can stay up and talk to this girl because I’ve had enough food and sleep lately.
But it seems that whatever is most pressing, whatever is ‘next’ in the logical progression of things, like breakfast, for instance, takes precedent.

Women: the rule writers of Chutes and Ladders.

A relationship with a girl is like playing chutes and ladders. Sometimes a guy does something and he gets a ladder, aka a good thing happens. A ladder may be something as small as reaching for her hand and she holds yours and smiles. That’s definitely a step up.
But with every ladder, there is, inevitably, a chute.
The next time that you may reach for her hand, she may pull away. But wait, this worked last time? What the heck? The definition of a chute….or any reason for a guy’s pride to deflate.

Crazy things happen in the game of Chutes and Ladders, mostly because all women are different and write different rules pertaining to the chutes and the ladders. Also, sometimes women change up the rules completely from what they were before, just to do so…and apparently this is the epitome of all evil in this metaphorical game (if you’re still following me by this point. My sources say that if you’re a guy, you are getting this completely, but if you’re a girl you may be trailing off a bit. I’m working on being a liaison.)

At the end of this conversation, I came to the conclusion that I’m basically the giver of chutes and ladders, and that it’s good for guys and girls to be together because a ‘symbiotic relationship’ happens between basic and complex.

And this is all very good, like the extra of a milk shake.