My wife thought it was sad when I told her I used to play board games by myself as a kid

I received the Happy Days board game one Christmas in the late 70s. More often than not when I played it, I was by myself.

Growing up, I had a core group of friends with whom I used to spend a lot of time. In the summers, especially, we did a lot of stuff together.

But even when you're 9 years old and your options are somewhat limited, there are still times when you're not with your friends and you have to figure out how to amuse yourself.

The child psychologists call this "independent play," my oldest daughter informs me, and it's a skill I developed pretty early as the youngest (by far) of four siblings. I was rarely bored.

One of the things I used to do was to take one of the several board games I owned down from the shelf in my room and play it by myself.

Even if the game was designed for four players, I would put four pieces on the board, roll the dice, and take each piece's turn individually.

Amazingly, I never told Terry about this until recently. I say "amazingly" because I've known the woman for nearly 39 years and figured I had absolutely exhausted my childhood stories (and adulthood stories, for that matter) with her.

But apparently this had never come up before. When I mentioned it, she at first laughed, then she got a pitying look on her face, which was worse than the laughing.

She even took to our family text group chat to let the kids know their father had been a sad, lonely little boy who was forced to engage in multiplayer board games by himself for lack of friends.

But as I explained to the kids, it wasn't like that at all. It was just one of the things I did to amuse myself whenever Matt, Kevin, Jason, Todd, Mike or any of my other Harding Drive/Mapledale Road compatriots were unavailable.

The sad thing is, I now appear to have lost this ability. I'm typing this blog post on a Saturday night in our living room, only because I have completely finished today's (and most of tomorrow's) to-do list and wasn't sure what to do with myself.

Maybe it's time for a little solo Monopoly!