‘Monopoly, Wichita Edition’ is coming. Here’s how to keep it real | Opinion
Mr. Monopoly was in town this week to announce that Wichita will soon get its own version of the Monopoly game.
Excitement ensues.
By the fall of this year, Top Trumps, the company licensed by Hasbro to customize the game for cities, will be releasing an official “Monopoly, Wichita Edition.”
That means Wichitans will no longer have to play knockoff games like Wichita-opoly, Kansas-opoly or Shocker-opoly ($18.30 to $24.95 at Walmart.com).
In the words of Barry Manilow, “Looks like we made it.”
At least I thought so until I ran a quick web search and found that Mr. Monopoly — the game’s top-hatted, bow-tied and white-gloved mascot — has been a busy guy, performing the same press conference with mayors in cities across America and Europe.
Now, if I were the suspicious type, I might suspect this was nothing more than a ploy to sell board games by massaging the collective egos of local municipalities’ government and merchant classes.
Nah.
It’s great to be on the same level as other Monopoly-featured metropolises including: Tulsa, Okla.; Baton Rouge, La; Riverside, Calif.; Bellevue, Wash.; Greenwich, Conn. (which is pronounced Grennich, not Green-witch like in Wichita); Worcester, Mass. (pronounced “Wuster,” and thank Ad Astra we don’t have a Worcester Street in Wichita, because who knows how we’d butcher that pronunciation); and Flagstaff, Arizona (don’t forget Winona).
We the people of Wichita, are being invited to suggest local sites for the squares on the game board at the website wichita@toptrumps.com.
Most of the recommendations from Wednesday’s gala press conference and after are the usual suspects you’d see in Visit Wichita brochures: Old Town, Keeper of the Plains, Wichita State University, Sedgwick County Zoo, Exploration Place, etc., etc.
Yawn.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. We are Wichita, and we can dare to be different.
By customizing the game as only we can, let’s show the world the real Peerless Princess of the Plains, our shining city on the banks of the Ar-Kansas River.
First, start with the playing pieces. No cars, thimbles, top hats and flatirons for us.
At the beginning of the game, each player picks a bicycle, because that’s the only form of transportation Wichita City Hall ever actively promotes.
Players are allowed to steal each others’ bikes if someone leaves the table to go to the bathroom, in which case the player who loses their bike plays the rest of the game with the shoe (the city’s transportation advisory council is called the Bicycle-Pedestrian Board for a reason).
The game set will also come with two buses, but you can only play with those until 7 p.m.
Instead of the traditional Monopoly banker, players will roll dice to be “the Charles.”
The Charles gets 95% of the money in the box and keeps it throughout the game, except in specific circumstances which I’ll explain later.
Players will also roll to be the “Rodney” and the “Brandon.” When players in those roles want to buy into something, like an ice-optional Ice Center, the game’s City Hall gives them money and doesn’t expect them to pay it back.
As for squares on the board, here are some suggestions for the real attractions in and around the city:
▪ Towne West Square — While other cities brag about their environmentally conscious solar-powered malls, Wichita is actually greener than any of them, because we have a mall that consumes no electricity at all for weeks on end.
▪ Wild West World — There’s nothing on this square, so players landing on it immediately advance to . . .
▪ Tyler and Kellogg — Where the prefab Western-theme buildings from Wild West World wound up in a strip center anchored by a tattoo parlor and a Subway.
▪ Community Chest — The player who lands on this square goes straight to Michelle’s Beach House and skips the next three turns voluntarily.
▪ Ollie’s — Because they closed the last Big Lots, and Wichita can’t function without “Good Stuff Cheap.”
▪ The Shirkmere — Once a flophouse apartment building for Wichita’s lowest-income residents, “the Chase,” (son of the Charles), bought it to turn into some sort of music center. It will be on the game board right next to . . .
▪ The sidewalk by United Methodist Open Door — Where people who used to live in the Shirkmere live now. From that square, they’ll have to jump straight to . . .
▪ The MAC — The Multi-Agency Center where Wichita will soon be solving the problem of homelessness in an abandoned elementary school that’s off-limits to the mayor and the media.
▪ Paid Parking — Because as Wichita city government always says, “Free parking isn’t really free.”
We can also localize the Chance cards to better reflect Wichita reality. Some suggestions:
▪ Busted for illegal camping — Go directly to the MAC. Do not pass GO, pay City Hall $200 (or 20 hours of community service).
▪ Run for office as a Republican — Collect $2,000 to $120,000 from the Charles, depending on the office sought.
▪ Take shortcut through Eastborough — Get stopped for speeding ( 25 mph). Pay $125 to enter diversion program. Lose one turn.
▪ Advance to nearest park — Get hustled at pickleball by senior citizens, pay $100.
So there you have it, some of my thoughts on making Monopoly, Wichita Edition our own.
I welcome yours.
