Shelby's Life and Whatnot

Euchre, Euchre, Euchre

For those of you who didn't grow up or go to school in, say, Indiana, Ohio, or Michigan, you may not be familiar with the card game Euchre (pronounced YOU-ker). If you're not, this post will be very boring for you and you might as well skip it. If you DO know how to play Euchre (not to mention having played it obsessively), click on the "Continue Reading Euchre, Euchre, Euchre" link below for the full story. You'll be shocked and appalled, as I was...

Still with me? Good.

Okay. When I heard the word "Euchre" at game night, I immediately perked up. What could be more fun than a game of the old euch? The Old Lady (hereafter known as OL) who was organizing the game is not someone I particularly like (and liked much less post-game), but I overlooked that and joined the game. It was me and OL and two women who had never played before. So that was cool. I'm always up for teaching someone the joy that is euchre.

The problem started when OL started explaining the rules. Everything was fine until she was explaining about the first round of calling the card up. She said "if the dealer's partner calls the card up, then she has to go alone." Excuse me? Thinking that she misspoke, I said no, you don't have to go alone unless you want to. And OL looked straight at me and said in a very condescending voice, "Well now you're trying to change the rules." Hunh? I said no (very politely), the way I learned it is that the dealer's partner can call up the card and she does not have to go alone. OL says "See, you're trying to change the rules. How can you play the game if you change the rules?" So I said (notice I'm giving her a save-face out here) "Well that's the way I learned it." Well she's still all huffy and she's like "You know, I tried to play euchre with two women in Florida and they said they knew the rules but they did the same thing and tried to change the rules. You can't just change the rules." and I'm like HELLO--maybe it's because your rule is WRONG!!

It wasn't so much that she wanted to play with a different rule as it was the way she was accusing me of trying to change the rule, presumably to my own advantage, and I was deliberately trying to sabotage the game. And she refused to accept that perhaps there were variations in rules. No--HER rules were the RIGHT rules and I was trying to CHANGE them. WhatEVER!

So I settled down for what was sure to be an interesting and less strategic game of euchre. And it was. Actually it wasn't interesting at all. OL had instilled the fear of God into the two new people so that they NEVER called up the face card as trump. And we weren't playing Screw the Dealer (which I might add is a VALID variant, to be agreed upon by all players before the game starts--believe me I didn't EVEN bring that one up), so more often than not, nobody would call trump and the dealer would pass the deal. We spent more time passing the deal than playing the frickin' game. And with her idiotic RULE, the dealer's partner COULDN'T call trump unless they went alone. And go alone hands, as you all know (if you've gotten this far) are pretty rare. Unless Chuck is dealing. But that's a different story.

Anyway, the game turned out to be painfully boring. Fortunately, we were saved by OL's scoring, which she did on a NAPKIN (I mean what are the 6s and 4s for anyway?!). In her version of the game, whoever got 3 tricks got 2 points, regardless of who called trump and whether or not there was a euch. What's the point of THAT? Well it made the game go faster, for one. Mercifully.

And I didn't even point out that she was dealing wrong (one card at a time).

Never again will I play Euchre with her. Obviously.