When you were quite young, the card game “War” upset you. You would keep losing against me, and your dad and I were unable to explain to you that the game lacks strategy. A win is predetermined by the shuffle of the deck.

A particularly distraught session caused you to break down crying, with you failing to be comforted by your dad. Then I had an idea. I said, “SWM, let’s change the game so that we can look at our cards beforehand,” that is, before we made our plays. You agreed.

The game started to go better for you. You began to always win and were much happier. During “wars”, your hauls would astonish you, you turning over kings, queens, and jacks. Our games would proceed such that I would run out of cards and you would “donate” to me roughly half of your cards, so that we could continue playing.

After several months of this, you grew suspicious. You asked, “Are you being nice to me?” During an early game of this between you and me, when you had told your dad, “Cammy changed the rules”, he had responded good-naturedly, “That’s cheating!”

— Adapted from a text message at 9:45 PM CT on 15 Apr 2025