That's Life

It's 8PM and it's still 93 degrees outside. We northerners aren't used to such sweltering temps. If we were to expose our pale, pasty skin to that kind of sunshine, our skin would melt off of our bones like the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So with Lady Di at a church meeting, I decided to have a family indoor activity. You may be saying to yourselves, "How could he imprison his kids indoors on such a beautiful summer evening?" Because I'm hot, that's why.

I sent the kids to the basement to bring up a board game. After the requisite ten minutes of whining, arguing and threatening over which game to choose, I invoked my fatherly authority and decided on the game Sorry.

The kids came up the stairs with the board game Life.

"Awwww, come on! Life takes almost as long to play as Monopoly!", I whined, argued and threatened.

I was overruled.

To start the game, Number One Son and I chose to go to college. Sweet Pea chose a career in law enforcement to start the game. Once N1S and I graduated we got to pick careers, he got artist and I drew doctor. "All right! I'm going to score some big bucks this game.", I rejoiced.

N1S pulled the $100,000 salary card. I pulled the $40,000.

"Son of a biscuit!"

We all got around to getting married, but it seemed that the kids were getting more valuable Life Cards than I was. They didn't seem to be paying out as much as me either. This game is just like real life.

When it was time for the kids to buy a house, they both declined. "Too much money.", they both declared.

Dad wanted a house. But he forgot to buy homeowners insurance and landed on the home burglary space and the tornado space. I was just teaching the kids a valuable lesson about the importance of insurance. And the importance of paying attention to the game.

After the house spot on the board, most of other spots are either Life cards (worth money), paydays or paying out for various life expenses. Sweet Pea's top goal, whenever we play this game, it to land on the Life card spaces that say, You have a boy, or a girl, or twins. She always wants to fill up her little car with kids. Well, the board didn't start out too well for her. She was in the lead, but would always miss the children spaces. Her brother, on the other hand, who couldn't care less about children, got all of the kid spaces, boy,girl and twins (boys of course). So his car was full. And every time he got a child, SP would look longingly at his brood and sigh with a pitiful look on her sad, stuck out lower lip, face.

But then, a miracle! She got twins! (And one of each, of course!) Then another girl. Then a boy. She was one proud Mama.

Not to mention, she was also trading the $100,000 salary card back and forth with N1S. No one seemed to want my $40,000 card and I couldn't, for the life of me, land on that darned trade salary space.

So with cars full of family, each kid made their way to retirement, collecting large paydays and Life cards along the way. They each thought they had the most money, so they both retired to Millionaire Estates.

When I had finally limped around the board, paying each kid each time I spun a ten or a one, I had only one option for retirement--Hobo Court. The board actually has Countryside Acres for the less affluent, but apparently I couldn't qualify for a loan their either.

So after paying off my student loans and adding up my meager assets, I ended up with around $200,000. I suppose I could live on that for a while, as long as I live a modest lifestyle and only eat one meal a day.

SP ended up with more money than she could count. She totalled $1,900,000 and was edged out slightly by N1S with $2,100,000.

Maybe one of them will let Dad live in their garage until he can get back on his feet again.