Ask MTD: My husband hides a spare double-blank domino under his seat for good luck, but it’s not. What do I do?

We, here at Mexican Train Dominoes Global HQ, receive questions via email and in our MTD Facebook Group. From time to time, we investigate answers to these pressing questions.

Recently, Diana from Port St. Lucie, Florida, wrote to ask:

“My husband keeps hiding a spare double-blank domino under his seat. He says it’s for good luck, but it seems to make an appearance in the game when it might be most convenient for his train. Should I confront him, or just let it go? It feels like cheating.”

Diana, it’s time to admit what you already know deep down in your gut: your husband is a no-good Mexican Train cheater. His cheating raises many other questions, like what else is he cheating on or at? Does he hide spare dice when one “conveniently” rolls off the table in a game of Bunco or Left Center Right? Does he tell the grandkids his extra Bingo card is just there for “twice as much luck”?

No, Diana, you have to get ahead of this. He must know this is not okay; otherwise, this risks escalating into worse behavior. Left un-matched, these under-covered dominoes may grow into any of these situations:

• Scratching letters off Scrabble tiles to treat them as blank tiles
• Moving ships during Battleship while under active attack
• Adding extra toes in games of Tic-Tac-Toe

We’ve seen it happen before.

Getting ahead of the rogue double-blank through a double-blank stare down

Diana, you can get ahead of this double-blank shenanigan by giving him what we’re going to call the double-blank stare down. It works like this:

1. Deep in the middle of the night, when he’s fast asleep, quietly extricate the real double-blank domino from your Mexican Train game set.
2. Hide the real double-blank domino in a safe place.
3. Organize all the dominoes into a logical stack that enables you to spread dominoes to players in such a way that your husband receives no doubles, no matches, and no good playable dominoes.
4. The next time you play MTD with friends or family, place the real double-blank domino close by. Maybe tape it under the table, or hide it under a bag of chips if you’re unwilling to risk harming your table’s varnish.
5. Coordinate with your friends for an epic lineup of dominoes on the public Mexican Train. Treat this for what it is: a coordinated 3-on-1 attack to unload dominoes in a chain of friendly cooperation with everyone but him.
6. When it’s time — and you’ll know when it’s time — pull out your real double-blank domino and lay it down. Lay it down thick. As you do, stare at your husband and with every ounce of tension you have in your hand, double-tap the table to indicate you’ve got one domino left, and then lay down your final unmatched tile.

It is essential as you do this that you make and maintain intense eye contact. Really penetrate deep into his soul. This should be a look we assume you have practiced for much of your married life. This is the stare you deploy when he comes home with hundreds of dollars in new power tools, or idly considers trading in the car for a boat. You know the one.

We think that after such an epic shutdown, he’ll get the point and learn the error of his ways.

In the meantime, if you’d like to remember what it was like playing against players who never cheat, we wholeheartedly recommend playing Mexican Train Dominoes online.