Dead Chocolate and Crazy Diplomats

Last night, I attended a big game of Diplomacy at Sachi's house along with the other members of this blog. Diplomacy consists of a map of pre-World War I Europe on a table with armies and fleets placed strategically on different parts, and the goal is to take over Europe. Most of the game is actually hiding in rooms making negotiations and plans with other countries and then breaking them whenever it seems fitting.

Before we started the game, we were eating pizza, and talking about Sachi's dog Kona.

"Don't feed your pizza to Kona," Sachi's mother said.

"I have an idea for a strategy," someone said. "Put a slice of pizza on the board, and Kona will take it, knocking all of the pieces off."

Knowing that we were going to eat brownies later, and also knowing that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, I began, "But make sure you don't put brownies on the board because dogs are poisonous to..." Oh no, I thought. Why does this have to happen to me? But what else could I do but finish what I had been saying? I finished, "...chocolate."

There was a short silence, with people staring at me strangely, and then everyone started to laugh. Someone commented on how there was so much dead chocolate that had been poisoned by dogs.

After dinner, the game took place. I was England, and I had been allied with Russia and France (we had a nice Triple Entente for a while). Now, there is a territory on the coast of France called Brest. For the most part, we were mature enough to avoid snickering, but when I was stuck between doing France's bidding and Italy's bidding, I found myself in a somewhat awkward situation. A representative from France, who wanted me to take Brest from Italy, followed me until I was cornered, insisting, "Attack Brest! Attack Brest! Claim the Brest!" And I was left squirming there peevishly, not knowing quite what to do.

-Philip