I was listening to some music on iTunes last night, downloading a few songs from 'Song of the Day' cards from Starbucks, and I decided to play a little game of Solitaire.




When I was younger and lived at my parents' house, I would sit in front of my computer in my windowless, basement bedroom and play Solitaire for hours and hours. Literally. I would just zone out and think about other things. It was kind of like meditation.... in a way..... ^_^





When I won a game within the first five minutes, before my second song was finished playing, I was actually a little irritated. Since when has it been so easy to win a game of Solitaire? Never, that's when! I closed the program, then brought it back up. Sure enough, again I won quickly. As I watched the little cards cascade down from their piles on top of the screen, I began to reminisce about the good old days...





In the good old days, you would sit for hours and never come close to winning. You would acquire superstitious habits relating to the game such as:

• Under the options tab, the scoring had to be set to 'Vegas' and the deck options 'draw three'. Otherwise the cards would just keep going and going and going. They were laughing at you.

• The deck you chose had no influence on the cards. You could pick whichever one you wanted (I liked the old school bats ^_^). Although sometimes you would change the deck to see if you could fool the cards into letting you win.

• If there were multiple places clear to place a king, you must always place this card as far left as you can (my grandfather and I disagreed here.... he thought you must place the kings as far right as you can. Obviously he was wrong).

• If there were multiple cards to turn over, you must start with the left-most card and work your way right.

• A long and complicated rule.... Once a card was resting in one of the four piles at the top of the screen, you could not pull it back down. Even if, for instance, you had a five of spades in its neat little pile, and just dealt is a four of hearts, and right behind the four is an ACE, the last ace you need! It was important to resist the tempation to bring the five down and place it on a six of diamonds just so you had a place to put the four so you could get to the ace. Although the program allowed you to do that, it was cheating. The Solitaire gods frowned on that, so if you did it, you would lose.

• And finally, if, just if, you did manage to win, you must allow the cards to finish cascading down the front of your computer. And keep in mind that this took a long time in the old days of brutally slow computers. If you (god forbid) clicked and halted the cascade of cards, you would never win again.

• Finally, after winning, you must not test the Solitaire god's patience. As soon as the cards finished cascading, and the dialog box popped up asking you if you want to deal again, you click no and immediately exit the game, thanking the Solitaire gods for showering you with their favor.

Ah, the good old days.... I'm sure everyone remembers Solitaire supersititions.

......

Right?

............

Right?!