Modern Guru: Is it wrong to sneak a peek at another's deck when playing cards?

Q: My 88-year-old mother and I play cards against my husband and his mother. Occasionally, when my husband and his mum are in the kitchen making our supper, we look at their cards and cheat a bit. Sometimes I feel guilty. It's just a bit of fun, isn't it?

S.S., Belmont, Vic

A: What a beautiful image for Mother's Day. You and your mother playing a game of cards against your husband and his mother, enjoying a delightful evening of cheating and scheming and plotting. It's like a scene from Casino Royale, but in the suburbs of Geelong, with hot soup instead of shaken martinis, and the Bond villain is wearing pastel-grey slip-on shoes with an adjustable velcro strap.

When a person reaches their mid- '80s, all the rules and values of civilised society go out the window. This is the time to booze, smoke, curse, gamble, dress inappropriately, and have wild sexual encounters with random strangers, making sure you leave your undies hooked onto one leg so they'll be easier to find afterwards in the dark. It's just being practical.

And this is also the time to cheat, whether at cards, at bingo, or on the croquet lawn, tampering with the ball to get more movement through the hoops (making sure you get a young, naive 77-year-old to take the fall).

So enjoy your guilt-free cheating, as long as you're aware that your husband and his mother may be up to their own wickedness in the kitchen. They may be over-peppering the shepherd's pie. Adding only two beans to the three-bean salad. Spiking the soup so they can peek at your cards when you've passed out face down in your soup bowls. Equally diabolical Bond-villain stuff like that.