THE GAME OF LIFE

 I LOVE board games.  I really don't care for card games although I would not say no to a good game of Gin Rummy, (which I rarely win but I like the game anyway.)  But board games, those I love. When I was growing up I had a whole closet full of board games which I used to play alone, using imaginary friends to compete with. I did not always win . . . which says a lot about my guilt ridden Catholic upbringing. 

Of all the games I had,  my very favorite was Clue.  Good old Colonel Mustard and Miss Peacock wielding the knife or the candle stick in the parlor or the kitchen.  THAT game I almost always won but then it was a lot more difficult to play that one alone.  I think I drove my parents nuts wanting them to play it with me all the time.  Unfortunately their favorite game was Scrabble which I came to HATE with a passion.  My mother thought it would be a very good learning tool to improve my spelling.  All it did was frustrate me so that to this day I avoid that game like the plague.  

My second most favorite game was, The Game Of Life.  For a kid it was exciting to get that little plastic car to drive around the board.  Stopping first to decided if I wanted to go to college or not, (more money if you did), and then moving on to add a husband and then children along the way depending on which spaces you stopped on.  (Getting married was not an option. You HAD to stop and add a spouse.  Thinking  back on that now I'm sure it would have been an issue for some group of radicals,  but in the 50's getting married and having children was what you were supposed to do. The silly part was that for gaining a spouse and children you got more money.  That should have been my first warning signal that this board game was not at all like real life. 

Let's start with that gaining a husband and getting paid to do it.  At this point of my life you couldn't pay me enough to add a man to my life. Back when I was young and stupid getting married seemed like the most wonderful thing to do. You would never need anyone to pay you. Silly me !  Then as we moved through the game we added children and also gained more money for each child. Sounds a lot like our welfare programs of today. (I think this board game was a socialist propaganda ploy.)   In the reality of my life every time I added a child I lost money.  Doctor and hospital bills were the first indication that having children was an expensive proposition.  (But I wouldn't change that for all the money in the world.). 

Moving along in our Game of Life there are many other discrepancies between the board game and reality. First and foremost is, There are NO Mosquitoes in the board Game of Life. I do think there should be a space that says, "You have moved to the UP and are being eaten alive by blood sucking insects. Pay $12,000 for gallons of bug spray."  The game could add many other spaces such as, "Sweating to death at night, pay $900 for a new air conditioner", or "Need to hire a hit man to kill your husband, pay $50,000". Let's also add a space for "Cable TV and Internet suck so you can't read your email or watch Netflix . . .  pay a zillion dollars" or a space for "Can't find a decent doctor, bagel or pizza within 300 miles. Sell your soul to Satan". 

There could be some spaces where you gained money but those would be few and far between. Maybe there could be a space where you got paid to plant a garden, spend a day with a friend, win the lottery or go on a Caribbean cruise. But then that would really be silly. After all, life just doesn't work that way.