Steve Braunias on playing Monopoly with his daughter

Monopoly money, a sudden gust of wind scattering it off the board and across the room. Someone has opened the sliding door. How careless! A breeze rushes in and picks up the world's lightest bank notes. There they go, like little anxious birds fluttering in the air, the same thing happening in houses and rooms all across New Zealand, in the lazy family days of summer, in lockdown – sometimes this happens by accident, sometimes by design.

Monopoly money is so flimsy. The black and white $1 notes, the yellow $20 notes, the deep orange $500 notes … all of it weightless, all of it worthless. But the fight for it is real. The root of all evil is the want of Monopoly money. All games tell us something about ourselves and the families we inhabit, but only one game makes such a virtue of naked, grasping, horrible, and downright mean self-interest – I'm a bad loser, given to really bitter and abusive tirades.

Monopoly money, in its tidy little stacks in front of each player. It's an equal playing field at the start of every game. The light of socialism gleams an instant. And then it's pure capitalism, free enterprise at its worst, the ideals of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand from corner to corner, the cause of terrible fights, stoking the slow and enduring fires of resentment, creating an underclass who have every right to despise the good fortunes of others, dividing and damaging families, setting, for example, father against daughter – all I can ever hope for is that someone will open the sliding door and disrupt or end the game.

Monopoly money is good to have but the best thing to have is property. We all have our favourites on the board. I love the railways. The satisfaction of correctly pronouncing Marylebone, its four syllables sounding like a musical phrase. I also love the modesty and charm of Old Kent Road and Whitechapel. Gonna take my horse down the Old Kent Road, gonna ride 'til I can't no more because Old Kent Road and Whitechapel are such cheap properties that they barely bring in any rent and constitute a waste of money and may be a contributing factor in the fact that I always, always lose - the horse is useless.

Monopoly money, added up, only amounts to $20,850. It feels like the bank holds so much more than that. It feels like the winning player holds so much more than that. You look at our own few pathetic notes and then you look across the board at their massive stash and it looks like a million dollars, give or take - it looks like all the money in the world - and there you are, charging six lousy bucks in rent when they land on Whitechapel. It's no fun to lose at any game but only one game punishes you with insolvency. How did you spend your lockdown? I spent mine crushed by market forces and a 14-year-old.

Monopoly money, in just about every currency. According to the internet of all things, more than 250 million Monopoly games have been sold since its introduction in 1935 and the game has been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide. Nearly 100 years of the pursuit of wealth, and for what? Has it brought happiness? Has it given joy? What a cynical game it is, what a weird little ode to real estate. We should be ashamed of ourselves for playing it. We should cancel it. Actually I did beat her once - and I really enjoyed it.

Monopoly money, scattered from the dining room to the living room, a warm breeze blowing through the door I just happened to open. I guess we all expect another level 3 lockdown. Covid will be itching to slip in and spread itself around before the vaccine is made available. Oh well. Back inside, confined to quarters; back to Monopoly and the roll of the dice. I love playing her. I hate losing to her. "I have a strategy," she said. I blunder along and make the same mistakes, and never learn, which is a definition of madness – picking up the scattered banknotes is like raking leaves.