With all due respect to the good people at Milton Bradley, I really hate the game Candy Land. It’s trite, boring, and deterministic, and short of watching “Batman & Robin” again, there are few ways I can think of that I wouldn’t rather spend time.

Which, of course, means the kids love it. I keep trying to convince them that it would save a lot of time and energy if we’d just flip a coin to decide who would win if we actually played, since there’s no strategy to the game, or indeed any decisions to be made at all. But they insist. And eventually, I break down.

The things we do for those kids.