I was worried that today's board gaming event wasn't going to happen at all, due to an unfortunate series of events that took place several days prior to it. They say that no good deed goes unpunished, and here's an example that's making me start to believe it's true...

In addition to this website, I also manage the board gaming events that I host on a spiffy little website called Meetup.com. Several days before the Boardgames in Creswell #6 event was to take place, I logged on to meetup.com website to check for new questions or comments about it, only to discover that it was heading towards CERTAIN DOOM!

When I logged in to the website, I was greeted by a big alert message on the page stating that the meetup's previous organizer had stepped down, leaving it without a leader and with mere days before it would be permanently shut down. Next to this alert message was a button with a prompt to click the button to take over the meetup's monthly fee and become the group's new organizer.

Never one to pass up a pointless position of prestige, I clicked said button and signed up to become the gaming group's new organizer. Ah, but very soon after answering the website's call to rescue the group from extinction, the entire wrath of Hades was unleashed upon me.

The previous organizer began to pepper my email, Facebook page, meetup event listing and its message board with irate complaints that I had taken over the group's organizer position without first contacting them for their consent.
 
Completely understandable. It became apparent that I had somehow misinterpreted the warning message stating that the previous organizer had already stepped down, and misjudged that the text on the page encouraging me to take over the group's monthly fees was a prompt to actually do so. I apologize for my mistake.

In my defense, I'm always screwing up these types of social queues. That's why, when I'm in a parking lot and I see someone pulling out of a space, I now get out of my car and walk up to their car and ask them to confirm whether they're actually really finished with the space, and whether it's okay for me to take it over. That way, there's no potential for me to have misread the signs.
 
After sifting through the barrage of angry message I received from the previous organizer, I contacted meetup.com's technical support to ask them for specific details on exactly what in the world was going on. Shortly thereafter, I received a response back from tech support stating:
 
So, it appears that the situation was caused by a software glitch that caused the alert message to be displayed on the group's webpage when it shouldn't have. The gaming group organizer position was rolled back to the previous person, my unnecessary payment was refunded to me, and I was given a coupon to start my own meetup group. Which I did.

Fortunately, even with all this brouhaha, the Creswell gaming session still took place with five attendees (including a new person). And fittingly enough, the game we ended up playing was Betrayal At House On The Hill.


I can't help but feel that something about this is ironic.

Followed up by a short game of Smash Up.


I'm too exhausted to come up with a witty caption for this one.

And so, with all this ridiculousness behind me, I can again look forward to the next board game day in Creswell, which will be on Sunday, November 17th, 2013. And hopefully any drama that takes place at the next event will will be restricted to the games.