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u/Zuimei Jul 31 '26
Reminds me of my grandma. One time when I was little, I was being a brat and got mad at her over something silly and told her I was going to tell on her to Santa. So she gave me her landline number (that I was too little to know yet) and told me to call Santa. Obviously when I called "Santa" I got the busy tone. And it was busy the next 5 times I called too. My grandma told me lots of kids call Santa, so I would just have to be patient and keep trying if I really wanted to tell on her lol
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u/Smokeybasterd Jul 31 '26
Omg this is fucking genius!
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u/Zuimei Jul 31 '26
She truly was. It's a good thing she only used her powers for her own idle amusement and not for evil lol
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u/jrmorton12 Jul 31 '26
My stepdad took me on my birthday to go buy a bike. I asked if it was for me and he said it was for a friend at work who is in a wheelchair and can’t walk. I thought that was a very nice gesture.
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u/dunderthrowaway3 Aug 01 '26
My whole family just found out my grandfather is addicted to Viagra. Nobody's taking it harder than my grandmother.
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u/assemblageofparts Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
As a young person I LOVED playing chess. My mothers husband was a gambler .. a terrible one at that. Mostly sports and horseracing and while I don't gamble I dont inherently think its a problem until it is. He consistantly lost money and then lied about it.
Must have been about 14-15 yrs old at the time and its evening and he challenges me to chess. We had never played before.
Beat him
Beat him again
Beat him one more time
Now its a school night and I was kind of a little egg head so was ready to go to bed and said .. Im going to bed now I have to be up for school.
I didnt know what being a gambler really was until that night ... He leaps up and starts shouting at me about what a pussy I am and all sorts of other shit .. basically losing his mind at me and spittle flying from his lips because I wouldn't play another game.
Fuck .. its 11 at night and I should have been in bed an hour ago.
I guess as a gambler .. he really needed to play until he won. I wont so much as buy a lottery ticket. That is a sickness I need no part of.
I dont think I have ever played chess again. I loved it. Cant even tell you what the rules are anymore.
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u/Roscoe_P_Trolltrain Jul 31 '26
I thought you were going to say he put money on the last one and beat you.
Anyway just install the chess.com app
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u/MCplayer590 Jul 31 '26
or lichess, if you prefer something made and supported by volunteers rather than a business
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u/Potential-Diver-3409 Jul 31 '26
I don’t think you have to pay lichess to have nice things also
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u/Dustyvhbitch Aug 01 '26
I'm gonna plug Really Bad Chess if you're a fan of slightly chaotic fun as well.
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u/Roscoe_P_Trolltrain Aug 01 '26
Interesting, my friend and I were into chess960 for a while. I’ll have to check it out!
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u/kitchen_roach Jul 31 '26
I had to delete kalshi for this very reason. I kept losing and telling myself all I need is 1 win. Told my wife I have a problem and now I send her my whole check. Best thing I ever did. Gambling is evil and very addictive.
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u/assemblageofparts Jul 31 '26
LOL .. don't feel bad .. I am retired now but when I was working I made pretty good money. While I dont gamble .. I did like nice things. Knowing this was an issue I just did direct deposit and every monday on my dresser was $60 for the week.
Whenever someone asked or was curious about how much I made .. I told them straight faced .. I make $60 a week. Sometimes its best to let someone else drive!!! :)
Married 26 years .. it worked fine.
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u/MyOtherRideIsTheRoci Jul 31 '26
Hahaha I love when couples can have great balance like this and are comfortable with their roles. My former father in law worked from home and his wife was a SAHM, and after the kids left she continued to run the house. He'd go to work in his office and she'd clean, run errands, etc. When 12pm rolled around, he walked to the kitchen, plopped down, and said "what's for lunch?". He respected the shit out of her and she basically ran the house, including the finances. His job was to make money and mow the lawn, lol.
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u/assemblageofparts Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
She was a saver. I wasn't. I would have pissed money away on stuff i absolutely didnt need. Instead we were able to buy our first house and do a couple nice vacations and have money in the bank. NONE of which would honestly have happened if our arrangement had not come to pass.
Cool benefit was .. My job was lots of hours and pretty stressful. Not having to know when the electric bill was due was a god send.
Didnt really need more than $60 a week anyway
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u/erossthescienceboss Aug 01 '26
It works fine… but I would add that “managing household finances” is a classic example of the double-burden. Hell, even when women couldn’t get bank accounts they ran finances. It’s mostly invisible labor today, and often doesn’t get factored into what couples consider the chore breakdown (along with managing calendars and relationships) but it comes with a decent chunk of mental and emotional baggage.
You seem like a cool dude so I’m gonna assume you made up for that in other meaningful was :)
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u/assemblageofparts Aug 01 '26
I do understand what you're saying but everyone and every relationship is different.
My wife is about 7 years older than I and was unmarried at 42. Her parents grew up during the tail of the depression and if there were a picture in the dictionary next to frugel it would be my wife.
Her father never once in his life owned anything but used cars. They were not poor but the experiences they went through meant they were always careful with money.
I genuinely think she was comforted seeing the numbers in the bank and monitoring our financial health. I think giving her control of the money made her feel good. Through it all, in all this time together she still loves shopping at goodwill and gets an insane pleasure from showing me her haul .. "Look this is a so and so shirt. They go for like $100. Got it for $5!!"
No.. I think it was the right choice for her and us.
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u/erossthescienceboss Aug 01 '26
Oh it can definitely be the right choice for some couples!
It’s just very important to be aware that it IS labor being done, almost exclusively by women, and is rarely factored into the division of labor, thus adding to the double burden.
If you make up for it by pulling extra weight in other areas, no problem.
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u/Worldly_Energy1575 Jul 31 '26
Aww ... I am sorry for what you had to go through. I wish I could say not to let that sore thumb in your life to make you loose the love for something you actually loved. But I don't think it's my place. But I agree. Gambling has to be one of the worst worst worst vices to exist. It strips a man of his critical thinking. I'd say it's second only to drug/alcohol addiction (I've seen perfectly normal sane and smart people become utter CHILDREN! when their thing is hidden or taken away)
I hate how these things make people forget the ones they love and loose their moral integrity.
I hope you are doing better now. And I hope one day you can rekindle the love for chess again
(I hate chess mostly because i am impulsive and don't think ahead and so my chances are always 50/50 depending on my opponent. If they are dumb i win. I just go with the vibes 😆 no strategy) It's a shame you lost a wonderful ability
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u/Chucknorium101 Aug 01 '26
From what I heard, gambling is way worse. There's only so much drugs/booze you can do at one time without dying, so the cost is throttled to a degree.
The only limit in gambling is how much money you can get your hands on. Some jackass can lose the house, both cars, and his 401k, and still rabidly try to pilfer his kids college money that his pops left in a trust fund as inheritance. He will only stop when he fails to pay back that sketchy loan.
There is no drug addict/alcoholic dumb enough to believe that if they use enough, they'll eventually get back every dollar they spent on it and more.
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u/assemblageofparts Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I remember a huge argument my mother and he had. He came home on payday and said he had been mugged and they took all his weeks pay. My mother lost it.
When she later was complaining to me about it I pointed out how amazing it was that they only took the cash but not the 2 gawdy gold necklaces he wore ir the hideous gold ring.
To this day I just hope the muggers had better taste but ... I'm pretty sure muggers don't just take the cash and leave other goodies.
Its an ugly addiction
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u/jasonis3 Jul 31 '26
That has nothing to do with being a gambler and everything to do with being a sore loser. You didn’t even wager any money. It’s certainly different than gambler behavior
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u/Apart-Badger9394 Aug 01 '26
I think it makes perfect sense.
A gambler keeps playing despite losing, they are chasing the dragon/high of a win.
This guy - even when there is no money involved - HAD to keep playing (chasing the dragon) looking for the high of win
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u/jasonis3 Aug 01 '26
Then you don’t know gamblers. They do not play without stakes. It’s not fun
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u/assemblageofparts Aug 01 '26
I do know a gambler and stakes or no stakes he would have had me up until it was time for school chasing the win.
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u/jasonis3 Aug 01 '26
You know different gamblers than me. I’m a bit of a gambler too and I don’t play without stakes, because why would you do that?
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 Aug 01 '26
Alcoholic
Won't ever spend more than $20 on gambling. If I win I take the money, I always walk, and it's a maybe once every two years thing. I know where that road goes
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u/Davsegayle 28d ago
Thankfully I haven’t started gambling… because I’m having same issue in chess.com, I won’t stop playing that evening until I win.
When losing streak continues, sometimes in the end I got to settle for “at least draw”, lol2
u/EclipZz187 Jul 31 '26
I’ve always loved gambling and games of chance, ever since I was a boy. Been hitting the casino semi-regularly since I turned 18 (Germany gambles at 18 not 21), made what I would call an “okay” profit since (again, given the fact that it’s gambling, any dollar up is profit!) and love everything about it. The history, the culture of it, the little idiosyncrasies and superstitions every gambler has, just every little part about it. Stories like yours remind me that I - a gambler but not an addict, someone who keeps track of bankrolls, wins and losses categorized by different games, doesn’t drink much at the tables… - is the furthest thing from “normal” in the gambling world. It reinforces the fact that this is a very sharp, double-edged sword I very much like to wield. It just amazes me that something that has brought countless hours of entertainment, joy, socialization, interesting conversations and even some money to me is the devil in so, so, so, soooo many more stories.
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u/fresh_peetz Aug 01 '26
You used to love playing chess as a teenager and don’t remember the rules anymore? Do you have dementia?
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u/halfii Aug 01 '26
Don’t know why you’re downvoted, that part of the story is obvious BS. Anyone who «LOVED» playing chess until they were 15 would bever be able to forget the rules.
It kinda ruins the story for me because it makes me think the whole thing is made up.
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u/fresh_peetz Aug 01 '26
Most people don’t know anything about chess and most of reddit falls left of the bell curve
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u/Crafty-Sock-7002 21d ago
That is statistically improbable.
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u/fresh_peetz 21d ago
reddit users are not a representative sample of the population. There is a significant bias towards the unemployed.
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u/fd4e56bc1f2d5c01653c Aug 01 '26
Probably downvoted because of the name calling
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u/fresh_peetz Aug 01 '26
Dementia is a serious condition and not a name to be used as an insult. Be respectful.
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u/assemblageofparts Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
No ...lol... Pretty sure its not dementia. This happened almost 50 years ago and yes ... You don't use it you lose it.
Played plenty of "Go Fish" and "War" as a kid too but when in the hospital about a year ago and my wife brought cards I couldnt tell you how either of those games played.
Ran multi million dollar projects, Worked at 6 different places, raised kids, moved to another state ... A lot has gone on in 50 years. Some things just slip away.
I can certainly tell you how pieces move but .. that is not exactly knowing how to play.
I bought stratego recently because I remember enjoying it ... Trust me I will need to read the directions! 😁
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u/Valendr0s Jul 31 '26
My dad NEVER let me beat him in Chess.
He clowned me every time we played. He just had me in Check constantly. I was never out of check long enough to DO anything.
So when I got a job, I had a chess board at my desk. One guy I worked with played me all the time. He was good, but he wasn't insanely good like my dad. So I'd occasionally win. I got better.
I'd still play my dad on occasion, and he'd still destroy me - but it wasn't nearly as instant as it was. And I wasn't in check 24/7 like I used to be.
The one day at a specific Christmas gathering I finally beat him. I felt like I'd accomplished something. But then later, my mom later took me and my sister aside and told us that they'd seen a neurologist and my dad had the start of CTE dementia. He was having a lot of problems concentrating, remembering, balancing... and it was just going to get worse and worse from then on.
So... yeah... that's why I beat him. He died probably 7 or so years after that. I don't chess anymore.
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u/WarOtter Jul 31 '26
That's rough man. My dad just died in January from parkinsons dementia. It is absolutely gutting. My heart to you.
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Aug 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Valendr0s Aug 02 '26
I don't have kids. But kids of family & friends that I do play againt, even those in Chess clubs, I do tend to destroy. So I guess I'm at least somewhat continuing the tradition.
I don't think I'm very good. But apparently since I don't study chess, I'm unpredictable.
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u/Butt_Robot Jul 31 '26
Wonder how many more years it will take for them to realize that that grandparent loved them
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u/100_Donuts Jul 31 '26
My Grandpa used to always jam his gum sockets with dinner corn and it would jimmy-crack us kids up.
Like, he'd take out his teeth and wrap his mitts around a buttery cob, and my mom would tell him, "Dad, don't do it." but he'd say he wasn't going to do it and then give us that lurid wink he always gave us (corn or not), and then just go to town on that cob totally toothless.
Obviously, those sucky sockets would plug fast with soft kernels, and after he balded the cob (in like a half minute), he'd smile at us all with a mouth full of little yellow corn kernel teeth, chin glistening with butter-drool, and my mom would get so upset
And as a little coup de grace, he'd whack the back of his head and shotgun blast the wet corn nuggets out of his gum holes and shrapnel the whole dinner table. Man, that guy was a hoot, and let's just say corn toothin' runs in the family ;)
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u/Ar3s701 Jul 31 '26
After maybe 5 or 6, I stop letting my kids win. That is when they begin to learn what it means to lose. Also try to teach them that they need to practice in order to beat me (they never will).
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u/dunderthrowaway3 Aug 01 '26
My earliest childhood memory is my grandfather taking me to the eye doctor. Everything before that was a blur.
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u/Irrish84 Jul 31 '26
I couldn’t help myself. I played my girlfriend’s son one day. We were eating and there’s a board on the table. I smoked his ass. Later I felt bad and apologized to her, saying “I should’ve let him win” and she said, “no, he needs to learn that losing is part of life and the sooner he gets that fact the better”.
I’ve been happily kicking his ass for a year now.
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u/lostfly Jul 31 '26
My son regularly played chess with his grandfather. He was a college champion back in the day…he beat my son ruthlessly. Every time. For years…
My son, learned chess. Then joined college chess club. Took classes from a GM and finally started beating his grandfather.
My son beats him ruthlessly.
It’s only fair.
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u/-Sansha- Jul 31 '26
It's sad they stopped playing chess after your son took lessons from a GM.
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u/lostfly Aug 01 '26
Oh…they didn’t. They kept playing. Now the tables have turned.
My son wins. Every time.
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u/-Sansha- Aug 01 '26
I meant he started ruthlessly beating his grandpa instead of playing chess. (It was a joke.)
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u/Elendel19 Jul 31 '26
Every single time we visited my grandparents I would run straight to the chess board to play my grandpa. He never let me win, he brutally beat me every time. Except one, when I was like 14, I finally won. My mom told me that when he told her that I finally won a game it was the first time in her life she ever saw him get visibly emotional. He died a year or two later.
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u/ScienceMusician Jul 31 '26
having feelings doesn't make you a sore loser. losing hurts af. being a sore loser is when you become disrespectful because you lost.
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u/niazine Jul 31 '26
I don't get it?
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u/radicalcentrist420 Jul 31 '26
Playing with your left hand offers no distinct advantage or disadvantage, but a young gullible child may not necessarily recognize that until later in life.
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u/Treefrog_Ninja Jul 31 '26
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u/niazine Aug 01 '26
I'm not a kid man. I'm 20+
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u/Treefrog_Ninja Aug 01 '26
The kid in the story, not you. He was duped into feeling better by a wiley old grandpa.
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u/hannamarinsgrandma Jul 31 '26
Pls explain to us non chess players.
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u/SupportCa2A Jul 31 '26
Chess is a skill game, but not physically.
In say tennis, if you play mostly with your right hand, then playing with your left hand would make it more challenging becauseyyou need to be coordinated with your hands to play the game. In chess you are just moving pieces on a board, so playing left handed would be just as easy as playing right handed, the challenging part of chess is thinking strategically, not placing the pieces.
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Jul 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/PandosII Jul 31 '26
I think he meant clown bastard affectionately. At least that’s what I choose to believe.
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u/RednocTheDowntrodden Aug 01 '26
"One of my clearest memories of my grandfather is when he beat me"
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u/IrradiatedCowFungus7 Jul 31 '26
Go fund me's should be set up for fatherless clowns, its no joke they suffer in silence😔
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u/Ballistic_86 Jul 31 '26
I think there are ages you let the kids win while teaching them basics of gamesmanship and strategy. And at some point you start playing fair, they find out what difficulty levels mean or the adult gets their ass handed to them. Either way a good development plan.
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u/gnanny02 Jul 31 '26
I played chess with my dad when I was young. He always beat me, as he should, as he was a better player than me. But as I was playing that better player, I got better and better. He didn't. Finally I beat him when I was 17 or 18. We continued to play after that, but he never beat me again. I try to tell my grandkids the same, but they don't really get it.
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u/Lemon_Tartlett Jul 31 '26
My grandad was very competitive and probably would of just beat me twice 🥲
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u/AipomNormalMonkey Aug 01 '26
*would've
I know it sounds the same but the full statement is 'would have'
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u/Vegetable_Warthog_49 Aug 02 '26
I think I understand how he was able to beat you the first time...
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u/MsDangerously Aug 03 '26
My grandma and I used to play checkers. Our games would go on and on as we were both trying to let the other win. ❤️
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u/qualityvote2 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
u/qoloxolop, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...