Monopoly, Prosperity

Two schoolgirls are looking at board games 
in the resale and creative reuse shop, 
and one of them asks: Do you know how to play 
this one, Monopoly? She says it like roly poly, 
that bug in the family of woodlice which looks
like a tiny armadillo with the ability to roll itself 
into a ball. It's further classified as a terrestrial 
crustacean, so I guess that means it's related 
to crawfish, and to sidewise-walking  crabs 
which you can find under the boardwalk
though I don't recall if there are any properties 
in the Monopoly universe named after either 
bugs or shrimp. Lizzie Magie invented the game,
originally called The Landlord's Game, to show 
the harmfulness of monopolies. She got a patent 
for it  in 1904 before women were even allowed 
to vote. The Parker Brothers company altered it 
and sold it as Monopoly; and thirty years later, 
a man (so on-brand) named Charles Darrow 
claimed it was he who invented the game in his 
basement. Magie was not the type to roll up into 
a ball without a fight, but she received only post-
humous recognition for her genius. She had one 
other version of her game, which she called 
Prosperity: players made things and found 
ways to interact productively with their opponents. 
She would have loved this kind of place and how
it functions. Bins overflow with discarded items
donated by the public: yes, used board games, 
but also crayons and paint, yarn and thread, 
scraps of fabric, buttons, stamps, modeling clay, 
children's toys,  wood, metal,  plastic—diverted 
momentarily from landfills. So much surplus, 
even here competing for another lease on life.