Friday, March 03, 2006

Poker and Preachers

I've never been interested poker; I prefer solitaire and 500 Rummy. Over the Christmas holiday, my father-in-law and husband partnered in corrupting my perfectly young innocent boys with Poker games. Now I find my nine year old arguing with my ten year old about what beats a flush and a full house.

As a child, I remember visiting my relatives in Georgia and watching the adults buzz around abruptly scooping up playing cards and beer and stuffing them under the couch pillows and behind bookshelves when they saw my grandpa's car proceeding down the road. He was a Southern Baptist preacherman. This flurry of activity at my grandpa's arrival, I did not understand. What was a grandpa going to do to his grown sons for drinking beer? What exactly were his plans had he found me as a little girl for playing solitaire? I'll never know, because Grandpa passed away when I was in high school. I imagine if he were around today, I'd be the only grandchild in the family to openly talk about the false merits of excluding cards and alcohol from everyone's life. I would, however, respect him enough to not do those things in front of him. Would my grandpa be angry with me for letting my boys whoop it up with their dad and grandpa at Poker? Laughter seems to be the point of my family's play. Apparently my boys don't altogether comprehend betting and tend to overbid by enormous amounts when they believe they have an excellent hand- gotta work on their poker faces and behavior. I personally can't see hiding something noone is troubled with in our immediate family, because others struggle with addiction or objection. I can see excluding these things with great ease to honor guests who struggle or disapprove.
Do you hide alcohol from certain guests in your home? I have friend in her late 30's who hides her beer in the dryer each time her parents visit. Is that taking it too far? How about cards? Any objections?

4 comments:

SmileDragon said...

We don't hide anything when we have house guests. I feel like ... if you can't handle who we are, then we just won't invite you into our home. A home is a place you should feel safe and be able to be yourself.

truevyne said...

Smile, good point.

~pen~ said...

the way i see it is this: i do not hide anything away because i have visitors. if i have a visitor that has an *issue* with alcohol, i.e., is an alcoholic, then i do not serve alcohol with that particular meal as i do not wish to be a stumbling block to my brother.

my husband and i do not see eye to eye on that issue, however, and he drinks beer regardless of who is invited to dinner. bone of contention.

other than that, there is nothing going on here that i would be ashamed of, save for too much time on the computer :)

Hope said...

I am uncomfortable with anyone drinking in my home because I still want to grab the drink from their hand and guzzle it down! I will be sober 18 years at the end of this month. My husband and grown kids will sit around the firepit and have a beer together or a cooler. I must say I am envious.

We probably wouldn't serve alcohol when we had company but if one of my husband's friends came over they might have a beer together. There are still drinking problems in my family of origin so the booze would not come out if they came over. It would just push too many buttons in my head.