Today was the dedication ceremony for the Doty Center at Great Lakes Christian College. As one might imagine, this brought a lot of people onto campus. By my estimation, well over 600. Among them were a number of people that Crystal and I had gone to school with. And as a result, we ended up going out to dinner with some friends, and their kids.
We sat down at the table, and prepared to order. There were 7 adults, and 7 kids, so the choosing, and the ordering, and the waiting was a long process. So in the mean time, at the behest of the 6 year old next to me, I began to play tic-tac-toe. The first few games ended in a draw, and then in a moment of “not paying attention”, Isaac was able to best me. And then the systematic domination began. For those that have played tic-tac-toe for any length of time, the best way to play is to try to trick the opponent into allowing you to setup a situation in which they cannot prevent you from winning. Though I felt slightly bad about it, I began to win game, after game, after game. A couple of them in the middle ended in a draw, but for the most part I played on without mercy.
At this point I could tell that he was getting frustrated, so I decided (in my head) to throw one of the games. I played in such a way that allowed him the opportunity to win, but he didn’t see his opportunity and played the board into a draw. Several of us pointed this out to him, but he didn’t seem to understand. So we started another game. This time I wasn’t really paying attention, but I ended up boxing him in and winning yet again. It was then that I noticed that he no longer wanted to play.
A few short minutes later his head was on the table, shortly followed by strange little kid noises, and finally, tears. I wasn’t really sure what had happened, until his dad asked him what was wrong. He didn’t respond. We then asked him if he was upset that I beat him at tic-tac-toe, to which he sobbed, “Yes.”
Oops.
