Winning at euchre just isn't in the cards

Baby Tenley doubling as a euchre table.

You'd think for a gal who plays euchre two times a week, I'd be pretty darn good at it by now. However, if you take a gander at the photo, you might be able to guess why I have the euchre-playing capabilities of a wild chimpanzee. I deliberately chose to compare my playing skills to a "wild" chimpanzee because I'd bet that a chimpanzee, living out his life in captivity, could easily beat me in euchre.

Today while I was enjoying my friend Kelly's delicious plum/raspberry crisp dessert between hands, I paused to reflect upon on our adorable card-playing "table". Kelly's beautiful baby Tenley patiently "held" the pile as we determined, argued or just simply forgot to call up trump. I was suddenly transported, back in time, to an oddly similar circumstance during a church youth group trip to Kentucky.

Our little group had pitched our tents among others, Woodstock-ish (without the blatant sex and drugs) in a giant, mildly-sloped field. Several boys were assigned to go "fetch water." They managed to successfully make it back but stopped short at the base of our mildly-sloped incline, claiming it was "too steep" and the water was "too heavy". Our mighty leader, a tall well-built police official, set off down this mild slope, mocking the boys with each step. That's what good Christian youth leaders do. It's in the manual. He easily grasped the buckets of water and walked briskly up the mild slope...setting a good example and, bonus, shaming the boys at the same time. The young men disappeared and our hero, a paragon of hard work and cooperation, glanced around quickly to make sure there were no under-age witnesses, and then collapsed to the ground, clutching his back. A slipped disc on a mildly-sloped incline. But, in the midst of this great adversity, we made the best of it. As our superstar of silent suffering lay in traction on the ground, he served as both our card table and as my husband's euchre partner. Our only complaint was that our playing cards kept slipping off the mildly-sloped incline.