Hasbro, maker of the world’s most famous board game of greed and unchecked development, has decided to take away one beloved piece and replace it with something shiny and new like a cat, guitar or robot.
You have until 2/5/13 to cast your vote on a special Facebook page that will help keep the old piece you like off the chopping block. The real threat of losing a token has gotten people to post passionate pleas that might be better reserved for important things like, say, asking North Korea to please not to fire any nuclear missiles.
Fans of the lamer pieces are being told that people who like the classic eight tokens “have a limited time to pick up the existing version of the game.” Ka-ching Hasbro — you just sold 5 zillion crusty old sets to nostalgia fiends like me to foist on kids who’d much rather have an iPad mini.
Even though I know it’s just a dumb marketing ploy — actually a genius marketing ploy — I’ll admit it has stirred up strong emotions in me… emotions I haven’t felt since I chucked a Monopoly board at my older brothers when they’d inevitably win after four hours of play because I was five years old and foolishly only wanted to buy purple and/or luxury properties while they expertly Baltic’d me out of my life savings.
But the thing is — I love the game. I wanted to play it, always. I begged my brothers to play. And although I had never pressed clothes in my life, I always wanted to be the iron. I even wanted to be the iron after I nearly melted my hand when I put my palm on my mother’s hot iron to see how hot it was. I think that was the first and last time my mom ironed.
Oh sure sometimes I’d be the wheelbarrow or the dog, but it was always the iron I’d go back to because I thought an iron moving around the board was hilarious. You expect a car or a ship to move. Even a shoe walks the city streets. But an iron? No. The thimble doesn’t move too, I guess, but the thimble is not as cool as an iron. A thimble protects — an iron is feminine yet immensely powerful.
Zappos is endorsing the shoe. 9 Lives cat food is using Morris to get behind the new kitty piece. And the car will never go because boys like them. The comments on the Facebook page about the iron are dire. People are writing, “Goodbye iron” and “Nobody irons anymore” and “Never liked you iron.”
And wait — voting is online but how can an iron compete with how crazy the internet is for adorable cats? The venue is biased! I motion to move this trial to a new location!
Ah well. Nice knowing you iron. ::sniff::
What’s your favorite dumb Monopoly piece? Let me know in the comments.
Source: Vote for your favorite Monopoly token — or else! [CNN]
Related original photo gallery: 16 Kids Toys That Suck
