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A Letter from the Secluded Sisters of the Missouri Valley
If you keep any ten people in the same house for long enough, things are going to get dramatic. And that’s especially true with us, because we’re dramatic people. I’m sure you’ve heard that there was a bit of a fight going on, but everything is fine now (and it was never that bad to start with).
But for those of you still wondering, here’s what happened:
We started playing midnight chess this summer and it was a wild success. But, because only six of us actually like chess, we all agreed to try and add another game into our repertoire. The chess-haters picked dungeons and dragons. I know that both chess and D&D seem like nerd games, but we’re all nerds here. It’s just that some of us are chess style nerds and some of us are dragon dorks. I’m a chess style nerd, but I promise to try and remain impartial in this letter.
Basically, the disagreement came down to how we should use our time in the game. The dragon dorks wanted to kill who-gives-a-shit to save someone-or-other. (I’m not going to pretend I remember these details.) Now that might sound interesting enough, but you have to remember that all of the fighting is done via dice*. While they were taking turns throwing punches proportional to die rolls, us chess nerds decided we wanted to do something else.
First, we wanted to make money by using our great modern sandwich knowledge to sell food from town to town**. But then Sarah (the dungeon master) deliberately undermined our sandwich empire. Apparently, every medieval peasant we ran into already had a stack of Reuben sandwiches back home. So we changed tactics and tried to make a living as professional musicians playing the pop hits of the 80’s and 90’s in pubs and inns around the land. When Sarah claimed that there was already an elf band in a bar playing “Come on Eileen,” things broke down into a screaming match.
The next morning, all of the chess sets were missing.
Now, you might be thinking, “Wouldn’t you be upset if the dragon dorks showed up to play chess and spent the whole time unionizing the pawns?” That was Alex’s argument, too. And they do have a point. But, I would contend that the dragon dorks don’t come and play chess at all. At least we take the time to show up and be annoying.
Alex and I weren’t on the exact same page, but we agreed enough to try and see if we couldn’t bring everyone together. Alex promised to come to midnight chess and I promised to stop making D&D sandwiches.
In a perfect world, one step in the right direction would cause another. Ideally, people would see that Alex and I were making an effort and they would start to make an effort, too. The dragon dorks would realize that they actually like playing chess and we would find out we enjoy fighting with dice. A little love and a little intention would mend our wounds. But of course, that isn’t what happened.
What happened was that some chess lover--I still don’t know who--started to leave Sarah messages while she was asleep. They would write it on her arm in liquid eye liner. Not messages about chess. Nothing that specific. Just things like “stop” or “why?” or “fuck you.” No one came forward. No one seemed suspicious. Heck, no one had liquid eyeliner. But everyone knew it must be one of the chess lovers.
Well, everyone except Sarah. Sarah was convinced this was a ghost.
Sarah grew up in a pretty strict Catholic household. Her parents fall into the category of Catholics-who-are-still-mad-the-mass-isn’t-in-Latin. They were more than horrible to her when she came out of the closet and the “Sacred Heart” school she went to wasn’t much better. All of this is a very abridged way of saying that Sarah has a pretty complicated relationship with the Pope and his pals. But, when she thought there was a ghost in her room, Sarah decided the Catholic church was probably the solution. To hear her tell it, Sarah’s dad had had some similar problem a decade or so ago. A priest came out to exorcise the room and then the problem went away.
And to cut it off at the pass: I realize that this might not be...like...classic Catholic doctrine. My sister’s boyfriend is pretty Catholic and he was telling me that Sarah probably just scheduled a blessing or something like that. Plus, he said, exorcisms are for demons, not ghosts. And I get that. But what I am saying is: After 17 years of private Catholic school, Sarah did reserve a priest to come and kick a ghost out of our house.
She scheduled an appointment a week out, which gave us all a week to talk her out of it. We all secretly hoped that as the day got closer, the “ghost” would come clean. But the chess sets were still missing and no one was taking credit for that either. While we were all waiting for some confession, Sarah naively insisted that “she knew all of us, and none of us would do something like this.”
For a group of people who talk a lot of shit about hierarchical religion, we were shockingly reverent about this priest. We, for some reason, thought that he was going to walk in, realize there wasn’t actually a ghost, and then get mad. As a group of people in their twenties and thirties who had just spent a month fighting about dungeons and dragons, we definitely had the feeling that our dad had shown up and now he was going to yell at us.
He was tall and in his late sixties and he showed up with the black gown and the collar. Everyone but Sarah stayed in the backyard. We claimed that we were too afraid to be in the house during the exorcism. The priest, of course, didn’t really care. He hadn’t come to play detective. He couldn’t care less about whether someone was playing ghost. He just did his blessing and left.
For those of you wondering how this turned out, the “ghost” never showed up again. Maybe that’s because whoever was writing on Sarah’s arm realized they went too far. Or maybe it was a spirit and we have the priest to thank. I guess we’ll never know. (That’s a joke. Obviously it’s the first option. I found a cheap liquid eyeliner in the trash a week later.)
*In venting to my sister, she said, “Oh no! Not fighting with dice! How silly! I want my fighting done the old fashioned way, little black and white figurines bonking into each other.” So--to all the similarly snarky chess skeptics out there--I would just like to remind you that the fighting in chess is done with the most powerful weapon this world has ever seen: THE HUMAN MIND!
**My sister also pointed out that it was probably breaking the rules of D&D to use modern sandwich knowledge that my character wouldn’t have. That makes some sense. But, ultimately, I regret nothing.
But for those of you still wondering, here’s what happened:
We started playing midnight chess this summer and it was a wild success. But, because only six of us actually like chess, we all agreed to try and add another game into our repertoire. The chess-haters picked dungeons and dragons. I know that both chess and D&D seem like nerd games, but we’re all nerds here. It’s just that some of us are chess style nerds and some of us are dragon dorks. I’m a chess style nerd, but I promise to try and remain impartial in this letter.
Basically, the disagreement came down to how we should use our time in the game. The dragon dorks wanted to kill who-gives-a-shit to save someone-or-other. (I’m not going to pretend I remember these details.) Now that might sound interesting enough, but you have to remember that all of the fighting is done via dice*. While they were taking turns throwing punches proportional to die rolls, us chess nerds decided we wanted to do something else.
First, we wanted to make money by using our great modern sandwich knowledge to sell food from town to town**. But then Sarah (the dungeon master) deliberately undermined our sandwich empire. Apparently, every medieval peasant we ran into already had a stack of Reuben sandwiches back home. So we changed tactics and tried to make a living as professional musicians playing the pop hits of the 80’s and 90’s in pubs and inns around the land. When Sarah claimed that there was already an elf band in a bar playing “Come on Eileen,” things broke down into a screaming match.
The next morning, all of the chess sets were missing.
Now, you might be thinking, “Wouldn’t you be upset if the dragon dorks showed up to play chess and spent the whole time unionizing the pawns?” That was Alex’s argument, too. And they do have a point. But, I would contend that the dragon dorks don’t come and play chess at all. At least we take the time to show up and be annoying.
Alex and I weren’t on the exact same page, but we agreed enough to try and see if we couldn’t bring everyone together. Alex promised to come to midnight chess and I promised to stop making D&D sandwiches.
In a perfect world, one step in the right direction would cause another. Ideally, people would see that Alex and I were making an effort and they would start to make an effort, too. The dragon dorks would realize that they actually like playing chess and we would find out we enjoy fighting with dice. A little love and a little intention would mend our wounds. But of course, that isn’t what happened.
What happened was that some chess lover--I still don’t know who--started to leave Sarah messages while she was asleep. They would write it on her arm in liquid eye liner. Not messages about chess. Nothing that specific. Just things like “stop” or “why?” or “fuck you.” No one came forward. No one seemed suspicious. Heck, no one had liquid eyeliner. But everyone knew it must be one of the chess lovers.
Well, everyone except Sarah. Sarah was convinced this was a ghost.
Sarah grew up in a pretty strict Catholic household. Her parents fall into the category of Catholics-who-are-still-mad-the-mass-isn’t-in-Latin. They were more than horrible to her when she came out of the closet and the “Sacred Heart” school she went to wasn’t much better. All of this is a very abridged way of saying that Sarah has a pretty complicated relationship with the Pope and his pals. But, when she thought there was a ghost in her room, Sarah decided the Catholic church was probably the solution. To hear her tell it, Sarah’s dad had had some similar problem a decade or so ago. A priest came out to exorcise the room and then the problem went away.
And to cut it off at the pass: I realize that this might not be...like...classic Catholic doctrine. My sister’s boyfriend is pretty Catholic and he was telling me that Sarah probably just scheduled a blessing or something like that. Plus, he said, exorcisms are for demons, not ghosts. And I get that. But what I am saying is: After 17 years of private Catholic school, Sarah did reserve a priest to come and kick a ghost out of our house.
She scheduled an appointment a week out, which gave us all a week to talk her out of it. We all secretly hoped that as the day got closer, the “ghost” would come clean. But the chess sets were still missing and no one was taking credit for that either. While we were all waiting for some confession, Sarah naively insisted that “she knew all of us, and none of us would do something like this.”
For a group of people who talk a lot of shit about hierarchical religion, we were shockingly reverent about this priest. We, for some reason, thought that he was going to walk in, realize there wasn’t actually a ghost, and then get mad. As a group of people in their twenties and thirties who had just spent a month fighting about dungeons and dragons, we definitely had the feeling that our dad had shown up and now he was going to yell at us.
He was tall and in his late sixties and he showed up with the black gown and the collar. Everyone but Sarah stayed in the backyard. We claimed that we were too afraid to be in the house during the exorcism. The priest, of course, didn’t really care. He hadn’t come to play detective. He couldn’t care less about whether someone was playing ghost. He just did his blessing and left.
For those of you wondering how this turned out, the “ghost” never showed up again. Maybe that’s because whoever was writing on Sarah’s arm realized they went too far. Or maybe it was a spirit and we have the priest to thank. I guess we’ll never know. (That’s a joke. Obviously it’s the first option. I found a cheap liquid eyeliner in the trash a week later.)
*In venting to my sister, she said, “Oh no! Not fighting with dice! How silly! I want my fighting done the old fashioned way, little black and white figurines bonking into each other.” So--to all the similarly snarky chess skeptics out there--I would just like to remind you that the fighting in chess is done with the most powerful weapon this world has ever seen: THE HUMAN MIND!
**My sister also pointed out that it was probably breaking the rules of D&D to use modern sandwich knowledge that my character wouldn’t have. That makes some sense. But, ultimately, I regret nothing.
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