Operation

One of the presents my six year old son "A" received for Christmas was the game Operation.

I actually played this game during my childhood, so it was with a strong sense of nostalgia that I engaged in a game of it with A last night.

The rotund cartoon character of a patient, Cadaver Charlie (real name Cavity Sam... I like mine better), still looks the same and much of the game is strikingly similar.

However, there are a few changes to the game that I played 30 years ago of note.

The first is the quality of the playing cards. When we played board games, a favorite winter activity in the frozen plains of South Dakota where I was raised, the cards were made out of the same material used in high quality decks of playing cards.

My two brothers and I played these games time and again, and they stood up to the abuse and are still playable today.

The playing cards in my new Operation game look and feel like they were printed in an old HP ink jet somewhere deep in the hinterlands of China. They may last through the end of this week.

At which point, we'll just throw the game away and buy another for $5 the next time we are at Target, right? I guess that is the point. I can't remember how much these games cost 30 years ago, but they must have been like $20 which at the time was worth more than two tickets to the movies.

Now Operation is a steal compared to the Venti seasonal sweetened Starbucks beverage I just spilled all over the interior of my car.

Play with it once, wipe your ass with it, flush it and move on, son.

Another change is the addition of Brain Freeze as a condition. This consists of a cute little ice cream cone lodged in Sam's head.

Brain Freeze is housed in a nice wide rectangular trough. The game piece even has a nice ridge on it for easy gripping. And, it is worth $600 to boot.

That is fucking Wish Bone money, man.

Even Charlie Horse is only $400 and have you ever tried to fish that fucking filly through the fingernail sized slit in which it sits?

Brain Freeze is the perfect addition for the lowered expectations and inflated praise generation.

One last thing. My son gets the cutest shocked look on his face when his tweezers touches the sides and lights the nose & buzzes the game board. However, he tries to keep his game face on and act like nothing happened, still going for the piece until I say something. Cute. Good competition instincts, I guess.

I'm thinking of rewiring the game to emit real life shocks (the beauty of being an electrical engineer is that is not an idle threat).

That might be the update this game really needs.