Jess, did I tell you about the time I played bingo...?
I don't like playing Bingo in a psych ward setting. Since it's a game that involves no skill but sheer luck, and I tend not to win very often, it can be damaging to my sense of self-worth when I'm already so fragile that I'm in a psych ward, for Pete's sake. I get to thinking that not even *luck* is on my side. The staff starts cheerleading, creating a sense of competitiveness that need not exist: "Come on, men, get going, the ladies are winning too many!!" As if anything can be done to change that. The token prizes aren't worth much, the same handful of people win repeatedly, because that's the way luck is, and then staff starts imposing a pity rule: "OK, after you win four times you have to give your next prize to somebody who hasn't won yet." Hey, it may be a nothing prize, but if I didn't win it myself, I don't want it!
Still, they really like for you to participate in those things, so I agreed to be the caller. I started making jokes about the numbers I called out. "B9. As in, the tumor was not malignant, but B9." (That got a big laugh out of the nurses.) "B4. As in, stop in the naaame of looove, beee-fore you breeeeak my heaaaart...." It earned me the participation points without actually having to play the stupid game
