Archive for the ‘Light-Hearted’ Category
A Full Deck
Thursday, September 26th, 2019
They say that when you shuffle a deck of cards, you create a new combination of cards. I always doubted that. I always thought that sure, a perfectly random deck of cards would be completely different, but a human shuffler would likely follow the same trends. Take Bridge for instance, the game I’m playing now. When we receive our cards in Bridge we immediately begin to organize them by suits. And when we play, for the most part we end up with sets of the same suit of cards. And when we shuffle, we don’t completely randomize it, we just mix them around until it feels right. It would make since that because of the already organized cards, we would succeed in playing the same hand twice. Of course we would never realize it if we did.
I pick up my cards, trying to commit them all to memory. Had I had this hand before? I count eleven points, I’ve had eleven points before, how many different hands could have eleven points?
“Pass” declares my sister. Big surprise there, she could have fifteen points, far above the bidding range, and still pass. It was my turn next.
“You ready for this? He’s got a big one, I can tell,” My grandpa was always optimistic about my hand. I smiled, thinking back to the time I was dealt eight hearts. Now that’s a hand I would remember if I got again, or was it nine hearts?
“Sorry but I think I’ve gotta pass,” In a way family is like a deck of cards. I watch my thoughts completely switch to family now, forgetting all about shuffling. We are theoretically random, yet moulded by the way humans do things. You also could get stuck with some rotten family members, just like a poor hand. I look at my sister, who had been an especially annoying card player today. Besides the passing when she should bid, which could be chalked up to being a relatively new player to the game, she would hardly ever pay attention to the game, and she was listening to music on her headphones which made sure that anyone who wanted to get her attention would have to be obnoxiously loud.
My grandma passes. Rough hand it seems.
Of course I can’t stay mad at her for too long. After all she is my sister. I guess sometimes you don’t always realize the value of your hand. Sometimes you initially completely disregard it because it has only five points, or it doesn’t have a five long suit. But it turns out it’s just what you need, and you wouldn’t trade it for the world. After all there’s huge variety in cards, and so many games you play with them. The same cards won’t be as good in Hearts as in Bridge, but that doesn’t mean you love them any less in Bridge or would disown them in Hearts. And after all, you can’t replace your family, just like you are stuck with the cards you’re dealt.
My grandpa passes, and everyone groans.
“I had eleven points and six diamonds!” I complain, while tossing in my cards to be re-dealt.