Chutes and Ladders - How a Board Game Led to Insanity

Can a board game cause neurotic behavior, or is going full-on schizoid over a board game a sign of neurosis?  Chicken...egg..?  As a kid, we had a few board games at home and I can honestly say, I hated board games.  No, wait, hate isn't a strong enough word:  I loathed those board games.  The mere mention of playing Sorry, or Trouble could easily spark in me a twitching fit with an onset of red itchy hives, but bringing out Chutes and Ladders from the closet was enough to send me into an anxiety-induced coma.

I don't recall being competitive exactly, so it wasn't the idea of losing games that convinced my brain to propose a near nervous breakdown, it was the idea of getting to the top of that game board, then landing on the loooonnnnngggg chute that carried me all the way back to the bottom.  That would be catastrophe in its most pristine form.  To have gone so far, only to be swiftly carried back to the bottom of the board to start from scratch was not something my 8 year old mind wanted to process.  Now, can anyone blame me for avoiding board games, especially the most diabolical of those games, Chutes and Ladders?

Insanity isn't really involved here, I promise.  I was a very anxious kid, easily stressed over the most mundane of things, even silly little board games like Chutes and Ladders (I just had an involuntary twitch as I typed those words).  I bring this up now because this childhood memory was triggered while sitting in the waiting room of my doctor's office today.  I saw the game on a shelf and promptly broke into a cold sweat.  A kid went to reach for it and I wanted to tackle him while screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" (in slow motion, movie style), as if I were about to save him from being hit by a bus (fitting analogy).

I kept my composure and remained seated until my doctor called me into her office.  When I went back out into the waiting room, the kid was gone, and the game was safely in its place on the shelf.  Next week I plan to sneak that game out in my coat and burn it in the parking lot while performing a ceremonial "closure" dance.

 

--Fortuitous Observer