The Card Shark

My daughter Lainey is five years old and I love her. Thunderstorms blew through this week and nothing beats summer rain like a card game.

“Let’s play hearts!” Lainey suggested one afternoon.

The objective of hearts is to win the least amount of hearts or win all of them—called shooting the moon.

Lainey busted out her cute little deck of cards, with heart, horseshoe, star and top hat suits. She shuffled them around on the bed, shrugged a shoulder and grinned conspiratorially.

“I’m going to shoot the moon,” she warned.

“Oh really?” I scoffed.

She dealt the cards slowly, we picked them up and Lainey spun around with her back to me.

“I’m organizing, dad. Don’t look.”

I rearranged my cards, by suit and high-low, and waited several minutes for Lainey to rearrange hers. I had a ton of hearts.

“Ready?” I asked as she spun to face me.

The conspiratorial nod.

“Go ahead," I said.

She laid down the 11 of horseshoes; a good lead since 11 is the highest number. I followed suit with a 5, she gathered her trick, and led with a 1 of clovers.

“You can have that one,” she smiled tauntingly.

We played till my only suit was hearts, and I led with the 11.

“Dad!” she yelled. “Not fair! I want to shoot the moon!”

She turned her back to me. I sighed, began to put the cards away, and she cried.

“Lainey, I don’t want to hear it,” I snapped.

We’d been through this before. If a toy makes her cry, then the toy goes away.

I held out my hand, “Give me your cards.”

“No.”

“Lainey!”

“I’ll play. I’ll play,” she relented.

“My deal,” I said, shuffled and dealt.

Again my hand was full of hearts. But I didn’t want to relive the drama. Losing at cards is as strategic as winning, and I was having fun.

“I shot the moon!” Lainey cheered, and ran into the kitchen to tell her mom.

Now we had a three-man game, and miraculously, Lainey shot the moon again.