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My son put a board game in front of my face last Sunday. Santa had thoughtfully given ‘My Dysfunctional Family’ to him last Christmas and here it was, still in its cellophane wrap five months later. “Can we play this?” he asked. Of course we’d play it. It sounded like the ideal game for our family. 

With the box in my hands, I studied the cover ‘My Dysfunctional Family – putting the FUN in Dysfunctional’. “Perfect” I muttered. It was all coming back to me. It had been a panic buy on Santa’s behalf on Christmas Eve. Now all I had to do was to round up all six members of my own dysfunctional family to play.

The eldest daughter was straightening her hair, another daughter was missing and the youngest was under her bed making rubber band bracelets. My husband was reading the Racing Post in front of the telly. Some ten minutes of yelling later and we all sat at the kitchen table like the Waltons.

To play ‘My Dysfunctional Family’, someone reads out a question and the others write down the name of the family member who fits the description. If your answer matches that of the person asking the question, you get a point. The first person to get to twenty is the winner. Easy.

My eldest daughter asked the first question. “Which member of the family is the most impatient?” Simple. I wrote my son’s name down as fast as I could and tapped my pen on the tabletop and bit my nails as I waited for everyone else to write their answer.

Everyone held up his or her answers. I was the only person to write my son’s name down. They had all written my name. They were all wrong as I have the patience of a saint. I thought they all knew everyone knows that. “Next question, next question, next question” I called out. 

“Which member of the family is most likely to lie to a police officer?” Another easy one, I write down my youngest daughter’s name. She is great at embellishing the truth and could talk her way our out of anything. We held up our answers.  

I got the majority vote again. This was ridiculous. “But you did pretend that you didn’t know your back light was broken last month when you were stopped,” one of my daughters pointed out gently, patting my back like I was in the later stages of senile dementia.

Next question:  “Which member of the family would take something from a family member’s room without asking?” Not me. My son was awarded that one.  Then, “Who is most likely to buy stuff that they don’t need?” That could be any of my daughters. I wrote one down at random and held my card up.

“I AM NOT A SHOPOHOLIC!” I screamed when to my astonishment, they had all written my name down. “But what about the ice cream machine you never use?” my son piped up. This game was getting too much. ‘My Dysfunctional Family’ was nothing more than an exercise in character assassination; public flogging at it’s finest.

Then the next question really touched a nerve. “Who is the worst driver?” So what if drive at the same speed as a mobility scooter?  At least I have no points on my licence.  That makes me a better driver than my husband, yet I got the majority vote. This was clearly a conspiracy.

Clearly the game was rigged.  Next question: “Which member of the family takes playing games with the family far too seriously?”  I won that vote too. I needed tea. Tea would calm my nerves, help me swing the game and be the first to twenty points. I might still be in with a chance.

But there was no milk in the fridge. I could write a whole list of my own questions about the fridge-freezer situation. “Which family member puts empty milk cartons back in the fridge?” “Which family member takes bites out of a block of cheese and put it back in the fridge?” “Which family member digs the chocolate fish out of the Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food and puts it back in the freezer?”

We paused My Dysfunctional Family for ten minutes whilst I drove to the local shop for milk. That’s when it happened. I reversed impatiently out of the driveway, scraping the side of the car along the garden wall. Outside the shop I surveyed the damage. There were a few large, deep scratches. “Which family member should have gone to Specsavers?” Me. “Which family member should have made do with black coffee?” Me.

At the shop, milk and teabags went into my shopping basket along with a Chunky Kit Kat, which I ate it in the driver’s seat. A Chunky Kit Kat always makes everything feel better. Ten minutes later, I drove home very, very carefully, slower than a mobility scooter.

No one saw me slip into my teenager’s room and borrow her bulging pencil case. They too busy raiding the fridge to notice me nip back outside to the driveway, where I crouched down and coloured in the scratch on the side of the car. Luckily my daughter had a felt tip pen in a similar shade of people carrier blue.

“Which family member will deny all knowledge of a scratch on their car?” Me.  “Which family member thinks that next year, Santa should think about gift vouchers instead of silly American board games that end up causing nothing but family fights, damage to the family car and paranoia?” ME.