Whaaaaaaaaheeeeeeeeeoyoyoyoiiee! (War Cry)

I'm hunched over the chess board, my chin on my fist. Sweat gathers on my forehead as I concentrate over the next move, but all I can hear is Matt counting "1 mississippi, 2 mississippi,...". I panic. What will I do? I don't know. Left or right? Left or right? Attack or defend? Attack or defend? Ahhhhhhhh! Just as Matt reaches the count of ten I move a pawn. It is a move of desperation, but Matt is too nervous to notice. He, also, only has ten seconds. He, too, is trying to tame his panicking inner-dialogue. His chin is also on his fist, and he too is under attack.

Chess can not be good for my blood pressure. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack the whole time I'm playing.

It's some kind of weird macho thing that I have when I play war games. I want to win the freaking war! Although I covered it well at the time, I don't think my self-esteem has ever fully recovered since the time I got my butt kicked in a game of chess by a pair of five-year-old twins. (But that's the exact beauty of chess. A chess game is challenging no matter who your opponent--quite unlike checkers and tic-tac-toe.)

The gusto with which I approach chess and other "war" games frightens me. I'm a girl--I'm not supposed to be violent and blood-thirsty. I don't really care if my team wins or loses during a sport, as long as we tried our best. I don't care about losing at a game of cards or a round of Monopoly. But hook me up with a paint-ball gun and I'll get primitive on your ass.

I remember in our small AP high school history class we played this war game called Diplomacy. My boyfriend and I made a team--the Soviet Union--and we spent lunch hours all week trying to work out a strategy to kick the Ottoman Empire's butt and conquer the rest of the nations. It was practically the only thing I thought about. I didn't care if I was being a dork, I just wanted to win.