In a previous post I wrote about my father being an inveterate card sharp. He loved playing cards and was very good at just about any game. There was one game, though, that haunted him his entire life. That card game was Uno. Dad couldn’t accept that there really wasn’t any winning strategy to Uno. Sure there were a few things you could do to help yourself (play high cards first, get rid of wild cards, etc.), but it really came down to luck. He was convinced that there was some secret strategy that would let him dominate the rest of us.

Today, I’m going to tell you about the first time he ever played Uno and how it led to one of the greatest card meltdowns in Family History.

Before we start, I need to quickly go over the layout of our house. It plays a part in the following story. Basically our house looks like the letter C that has toppled on its side. A basic diagram is shown below.

The important items to note are that the kitchen where we played cards is on the extreme left. My parents’ bedroom is on the extreme right. There is a long hallway that connects them. There is also a door in the kitchen that leads to the back door where the garbage can is. Now that you know the basics, let’s get on with the story.

I can’t remember the exact date, but I know that my sister and I were young. I’m guessing I was in Jr. High and my sister was in elementary school. That would have made Dad be in his mid-30’s. Uno had finally found its way to the prairie and all of a sudden it was showing up everywhere. Mom, my sister and I thought it would be a great birthday gift for Dad.

Things started well. We had cake, gave Dad his new deck of cards and he seemed happy. While we cleared the table, Dad pored over the instructions. My sister and I told him it wasn’t necessary to read the instructions because it was super easy and we could teach him in 5 minutes. The card sharp wasn’t about to trust his brain damaged kids, though, and kept reading.

We started playing and Mom and Dad both quickly picked up the game. At first everyone was happy and enjoying themselves. Soon, a certain someone started getting frustrated because a) Uno is a dumb luck game and b) he was playing with three people who weren’t using any strategies that he could counter. The frustration was sort of funny to the rest of us because Dad was a pretty mild mannered guy in almost everything except cards. We viewed Dad’s fits of rage during card games with amusement because we knew he’d never escalate to any violence, so we could laugh in safety.

Then it happened.

During a game, Dad ran into one of those streaks where you get slammed over and over again. Where the person before you finally runs out of Wild Draw 4’s and plays a reverse, then when it comes around again, the new person before your turn starts playing Draw 2’s and other mean cards. Every time Dad was skipped, reversed or had to draw more cards, he got madder and madder. As the smoke started leaking out his ears, it got harder and harder not to laugh. We held our cards up to our faces to hide the smiles and smirks.

Finally, Mom was finally forced to draw a card. Dad’s eyes lit up because he was finally going to be able to play one of his cards and he had plenty of mean cards in his hand. Revenge was his! Then Mom drew a Draw 4 from the stack and played it. As she dropped it on the pile, a giggle escaped her lips. That was it for my sister and I. We collapsed in laughter.

Dad took a beat and then threw his hand of cards (and there were a lot of them) across the table at us. Then he jumped up and stormed out of the kitchen and STOMPED all the way to his bedroom. We heard him slam the door and plop down on the bed. Oh man, were we LAUGHING! Tears were pouring down our faces. Throwing the cards already put this into a Top 5 Meltdown list.

Then the bedroom door opened up. Dad came stomping back down the hall and into the kitchen. You’d think that this would have scared us enough that we’d stop laughing. Nope. It made us laugh harder.

Dad scooped up as many of the Uno cards as he could from the table. Holding them to his chest, he said “These are my birthday present, right? I can do whatever I want with them right? They’re mine right?” Then he stomped out the back door and threw them all into the garbage can outside.

If any of us could move, we would have called 911 because at that point we couldn’t even breathe because we were laughing so hard. Luckily Dad didn’t come back in and kill us. He just stomped back down the hallway to his room to sulk and pout some more. I don’t know how long it took us to stop laughing at his misfortune.

Dad had calmed down by the next morning and was very sheepish about his meltdown. We felt bad for him and didn’t tease him at all. Of course, as soon as he had left for work and the stores opened we went and bought another deck of Uno cards. I think we were smart enough to not show them to him until a month or so later. I don’t know how much longer it took us before we could tease him.

For the rest of his life, Dad had a terrible time at Uno. It was one of the few games where you had a better than average chance of beating him.

I hope that this post made you laugh. I am unsure how funny it is to outsiders, or how much of the humor relies on how out of character Dad’s tantrum was. I miss Dad and wish he was still around to pout after a game of Uno.