The Game Of Life!

Don't know if you've ever played this game (if you haven't and you plan to, I'd recommend setting aside at least 1 &1/2 hours. It's takes a while to live a life) but it's a fave in our fam. The premise is that you move through the board and take what life gives you and then deal with it. The object of the game is to earn as much money as possible (I'm not thrilled with the message that sends, but as you'll see, we don't seem to take it much to heart around the Smith House). You can go to college, choose a career, get married, have kids, take vacations, pay for trips, buy art, send your kids to camp, win a game show, yada yada yada.
We've added a few twists to the Smith Fam version. First of all, there's these spaces called "Spin to Win" where you basically place a bet to see if you can get a windfall. We, of course, can't possible tolerate gambling, even with money that is painfully unreal, because that would just be unconscionable.

Okay, actually we just don't like the time it takes each time you land on Spin to Win, so those spaces are now $10,000 lottery winners.

And, one of the quirks of the play-by-the-rules game is that you can go through the game and never have kids (evidently, the creators wanted a few people to experience the desert that is infertility). Well, for our child loving daughter Anya, that is just not acceptable. So we added the adoptions rule: for $20,000 you can adopt a child (or two or three or four) at the beginning of any turn. (Don't worry, the money all goes toward legitimate fees and costs. Yeah, right.) The only downside to adoption is that you don't get the obligatory $5000 baby gifts that you get when you land on a birth space. I know, it's not fair, but no one ever said life was fair.As a side note, I find it odd that the makers of Life have fashioned the game in such a way that you MUST get married. It is impossible to progress without getting hitched. Evidently, being single is not really living in the minds of those creative minds at Milton Bradley. Who knew that the many single friends we have in real life weren't really living? But I digress...Of course, if you add extra children to your family, soon one minivan is not enough. I mean, they only made room in the vans for two parents and four children, which is fa-a-a-a-r to few for Anya. So we added a new option: you can also purchase another car for $20,000 at the beginning of any turn with which you can then transport your ever burgeoning family.

On another side note, I must say that Anya's propensity for a large family has caused us to wonder if living in Utah with it's many super size families has caused her to have an altered view of family size, but for now we rest in the hope that she only wants 10 kids in her game board life. Although she really does like watching reruns of Jon & Kate Plus 8. Hmmm...

What Anya discovered on our recent Game of Life playing day is that there is a downside to having a family with 10 children. First of all there's the space that says send your kids to camp for $5000 a piece. Ouch.

And the space that says take a family cruise at $10000 per ticket. Double ouch.

Or the worst ignominy of all: send your kids to college; $50,000 each.
Yikes.

And this on a salary of $70,000 per payday, which had already been severely reduced by the adoption of 10 children and the purchase of the aforementioned minivan.

Add on $500,000 in college tuition, and her bank account was sorely depleted. She had a mere $50,000 left. Quite a bit in real life terms, but a mere pittance in The Game Of Life.I, on the other hand, had a more lucrative career ($100,000 + each payday) and a small family, so I ended the game with over $1.6 million, and the title of champeen 'o Life.Anya's only saving grace was that at retirement she received a handsome retirement present in the form of cash from each child. There's gotta be some advantage to having all those kids.

She still lost. But I'm sure she found comfort in the many fond memories of those blessed days with her family, packed into two minivans and driving around a multi-colored path praying they didn't land on the "build a new house at a cost of $60,000 per bedroom, one bedroom per child" space.

That one is a killer.