Patty Would Be Ashamed

Spoiler alert: This is a bridge post.

So I’m out of town, playing bridge with one of my favorite partners, and we’re having an okay game. As we get toward the end, something a little untoward happens. We’re having to share boards, which means that everyone is playing the same  5 hands so we have to pass the cards around. Keeping track of the score is a little difficult because you’re not playing the boards in order. (Say there are boards 1 – 5 and you’re putting the score into the machine. Normally you’d play 1, then 2, etc. But since we’re sharing, someone else has board 1, and 2, so I have to remember to put the score in for number 3 even though it’s the first board I’ve played. Get it?) Well, one of the other tables didn’t get it either. So when I go to put in our scores, it shows that someone made a SLAM in spades. Impossible with our cards so we know that they’ve entered their score in the wrong place. Why does this matter? Cause now I know that on one of the boards coming my way, it’s possible to make a slam worth 980 points.

So.. the next board comes and I open 1 NT which shows 15-17 points. My partner bids 2 Hearts which means he wants me to bid spades. I bid spades, he asks for aces, then puts us in 6 spades. You should know that my partner DID NOT KNOW that the other table bid and made 6 spades, he was just bidding his hand.

So.. the lady to my right, also the Director (referee) says that she feels “damaged” by my fore knowledge and will adjust the score. I tell her that she wasn’t damaged because my partner didn’t know and since he bid it, it should be fine. So she’s like, “I still say I’m damaged.” And I’m like, “No, you’re not.” And she says, “I say I’m DAMAGED.” And I say, “A cat with cream on it’s whiskers can SAY it milked a cow but it doesn’t make it so!” And she says that I can appeal to the director which is also HER and I ask if I can appeal to a higher power and call my friend Priscilla who just so happened to be the director that TAUGHT this damaged director, and she says “no.”

Anyway. I make 6 spades, she rules that she was damaged and that WE were also damaged so I get an above average score which is good because everyone also make 6 spades and normally it would have just been average. Which goes to show you that I need to find a new hobby because I STILL came in third.

Sigh.