What's the Deal With the New Monopoly Pieces?

Since 1903, Monopoly has been the most playful way of teaching children to praise the almighty dollar. While the game has evolved over the years, it remains America's favorite reason to invite friends over for a miserable evening of tedious frustration.

But recently, Hasbro has decided to make some changes to Monopoly—not by making the game at all enjoyable, but by once again updating the tokens.

The boot, the wheelbarrow, and the thimble (or as it's more commonly referred to by Peter Pan, Michael Jackson, and all the other boys in Neverland, the "kiss") are being replaced by three new figurines.

Personally, I'd hoped that the new tokens would be things that related to current events and better suited the game's capitalist themes, like a miniature microwave that spies on Donald Trump, the pewter mold of a bad toupee, or a tiny sculpture of Ann Coulter masturbating in the bathtub while reading a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

I'd also hoped that the updated version of the classic game would finally up the free enterprise ante by making the Monopoly Jail a purchasable property, thus teaching kids of the joyous wonders that come with owning their own private prison.

Unfortunately, the good people at Hasbro went in a different direction by allowing the public to vote online to pick the game's new tokens. And if we've learned anything from Donald Trump, American Idol, and Cappuccino flavored Lay's Potato Chips, it's that allowing people to vote has its drawbacks.

Ultimately, Millennial quirk dominated the polls, and the three new additions to the board game are a T-rex, a penguin, and a God damned rubber ducky.

I'm all for adopting classic games so that they fit with the times. I like the version of Risk where you can take over the moon and roll a twenty-sided die to drop nukes on other countries, and I reluctantly enjoy the many variations of Monopoly that have been created over the years. I especially get a kick out of Farm-opoly, because owning a copy of that particular version of the game is the most succinct way of saying, "The only thing I love more than boring board games is the 4-H Club. That's why I play Farm-opoly every week with my friends. And by 'friends' I mean 'all nine of my goats.'"

But the new, zany tokens seem out of place. Because as anyone who's ever played the game well knows, Monopoly is no place for childish things like hope or whimsy. It's a place for unchecked corporate greed. It's a dog-eat-dog world where players compete in a rat race to see who can make the most money. It's a game where you trick your six-year-old cousin into trading you all of his green properties for one of the trains and then watch in glee as the smile wilts from his little face and he's forced to declare bankruptcy. Sure, the T-rex may survive that sort of savagery, but that dumbass penguin doesn't stand a fucking chance.

Oddly enough, the rubber ducky will likely serve players well since it's the foremost accessory for business tycoons who regularly bathe in the blood of the poor.

The only good news to come from all this is that modern families may finally be spared from the eight-hour ordeal of attempting to endure Monopoly, because kids will be so busy fighting over who gets to be the dinosaur that they'll never actually start playing the game. Of course, it doesn't matter what the tokens are because they'll all eventually be misplaced. After all, no one's owned a full Monopoly set that's complete with all it's pieces since 1904.