The current lineup of Monopoly tokens. Should the shoe get the boot? Should the battleship sink? Should there be a final tip of the top hat?
Some days are such that one needs to escape, if only for a few moments, into the realm of the completely and utterly trivial.
To wit: The makers of the game Monopoly are conducting a survey to decide which of the classic tokens used to play this game of real estate wheeling and dealing should be retired.
The current version of the classic game comes with the following; shoe, top hat, wheelbarrow, clothes iron, battleship, race car, thimble and Scottie dog.
One of these must go, to make room for one of these: diamond ring, guitar, toy robot, cat or helicopter.
Hasbro, which now owns the game that was originally sold by Parker Brothers, has set up a special
Facebook page where Monopolists (is that the right word?) can cast their votes for the token to be tossed.
The popularity of cats bodes well for this token to join the others, although I like the look of the robot, and I’ve always had a fondness for the acoustic guitar.
As for what should go, the iron and the wheelbarrow seem to be the most likely, as these items aren’t “representative of modern Monopoly players,” which Hasbro officials have stated as the reason for making this change.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Monopoly tokens have come and gone. Some of the pieces that were part of my family’s Monopoly game, which dates back to the mid-1960s, are no longer part of the game – the man on horseback and the cannon, for example.
It’s been years since my family has played Monopoly. For several years, we employed it regularly, in sessions that lasted well into the night and usually ended with my father and my older sister engaged in a struggle that would only end when one or the other was finally pushed off the metaphoric fiscal cliff (my sister, for example, was notorious for squirreling away stray $500 bills that she could produce when it looked like her monetary goose was cooked.)
I usually was the first to go broke and leave the game. This very probably explains my troubles with comprehending the finer – or for that matter, the duller – points of finances to this day.
However, I did always make certain that I went down driving. The car was my token of choice, and if Hasbro knows what’s good for it, it will make sure the car continues to drive around this stylized vision of Atlantic City, N.J., from Mediterranean Avenue to Boardwalk.
