Sorry!

Woe to the unlucky Sorry! player, and the torrent of conflicting advice he hears from the little animated angel and devil that perch on either shoulder. Angel: “Show some sportsmanship! Prove you know the fine art of losing gracefully!” Devil: “I say hurl the game against the wall. That S.O.B. has sent you packing one time too many. And think of how neat the pieces will look as they rocket through the air-it’ll make you feel better!” Angel: “What about neatly packing up the game back in its box? No? You’re frustrated, you say? Really really frustrated? All right sweetie, then give it a little toss—not a hurl, but a nice simple toss. Because truly…I’ve never seen card-drawing as pathetic as yours.”

For those of us who have pitched board games into the air after a humiliating, teeth-clenching defeat, it’s doubly embarrassing when Sorry! is the reason we step up to that bad-temper pitching mound. It’s such a simple game, really such a harmless-looking game, how come it always gets the better of us?

Sorry! is a close relative of Parcheesi, and it first hit the parlor tabletops (or the walls, if somebody’s loss was bad enough) in England. In 1934, Parker Brothers acquired the rights to make the game in the States, and today, toy king Hasbro controls this most apologetic of board games.

Up to four people play, and each player gets four same-colored ‘pawns’. Players take turns drawing from the deck of Sorry! cards, which dictate forward and backward movement around the board. The first player to move all four pawns from Start to Home wins. Easy, right? Easy, except that opponents can send you right back to your starting point, and they can do it right when you’re on the cusp of your warm, cozy primary-colored Home. The lesser-than out there will call out “Sorry!” as they send their competition back, and though it’s one little word, its pronouncement is known to stir up distinctly unsportsmanlike conduct. Maybe it’s the exclamation point that does it.