Okay, we are grasping at straws here, so to speak. Our trip has been delayed at least another two days because of gale winds and rough seas. Today it’s grey, cold and windy outside. We’ve played travel Scrabble, Suduko and now, Monkeys in a Barrel, which we found in our cabin.

For those of you who have never played before, there’s a plastic barrel with 10-12 monkeys in it. You shake them up, toss them onto the table and then, using one monkey to begin, hook the other monkeys, one by one, to form a chain. It’s sort of a variation of pick up sticks.

A newbie to the game, Tim, picks them up in a heap and counts them as connected even if they are just stuck together by the legs or head. Sheesh.

We quickly came to a dispute in the rules and couldn’t find an answer online.

It’s not in the official rules, nor could we find anything online about it, not even in Wikipedia.

When it’s flat like this, there is no chance of picking it up.

I applied what I consider advanced technique and pushed one monkey to the edge of the table so it could be hooked. Otherwise, when there are only a few monkeys left, they are flat on the table and impossible to hook.

Believe it or not, no one has addressed this. Am I the first to think of this? My rules say it is allowed.