Why Battleship Should Be Illegal

I have always hated the game Battleship. Well, maybe hate is a strong word.  There are very few things in life that I actually hate, except ironing, but that's just a given:)  The game does drive me crazy though.  It drove me crazy when I was a kid and my brother was always asking me to play it and it drives me crazy listening to my kids play it now!  This is my list of why it should be outlawed:)

1) The game takes forever.  Like seriously, forever.  You are always convinced at some point that the other player has lied to you because for Pete's sake, you should've hit something by now!!  Jonathan has instituted a new rule in the house where each player gets three guess at a time to "speed it up".  He likes the game and even he thinks it takes too long!  Its like Monopoly, but I won't even get started on that......

2) As I alluded to in the previous point, you start to think the other person is cheating and so it starts creating distrust.  Today, after a break in the game, Jonathan wouldn't go back into the playroom without someone else so he couldn't be accused of cheating.  We can't even freely walk around the house now??  When I went to take pictures of them, they were actually playing in separate rooms so they couldn't "Accidentally" see the other persons board.

  

3) It's only a two person game.  If you have three kids, you know the frustration and fighting caused by two children doing something and the third just waiting for their turn.  For an eternity!

(I told Emma to look at her board for this picture.  She said, "Hold on.  I'll grab a red pin so it looks like I'm sinking a ship!":)

4) You have to call out letter and number combinations.  You may be wondering why this is a problem.  This is pretty much an exact transcript of Jonathan and Emma's game this afternoon.

Emma: "EF"

"It has to be a number and a letter!"

"Oh yeah!  Ok.  E1"

"Miss.  F1"

"Jonathan, there is no S"

"I said F1"

"I just said there is no S!"

"I said F1 Emma.  F!"

"Jonathan!  Stop saying S!"

"I said F!  FFFFFFFF!"

"OH!  Miss."

"Ugh"

My thoughts exactly.