I am amazed sometimes at the things I’ve never done. Seems I’ve managed to get through 54 years without playing The Game of Life. “Life” the board game, that is, not “life” as in breathing, eating, relating, loving, laughing, playing, crying, etc.

So I sat down with a friend and played The Game of Life (according to Milton Bradley) the other day.

“This is a joke, right?” I asked as she set up the bank and we picked out little plastic cars that would take us through “life.” “It’s meant to be ironic, right?”

“I dunno,” she said as she, the banker, sold me a house, let me pick a career, buy insurance and stock, and pay taxes.

“So, how do you win? I asked.

“After you get to the Retirement space you have no moves left,” she began.

“What?!! After you retire there are no moves left? Well, that’s depressing,” I said. “What if you retire early, say at 54? (I was beginning to take this personally.) What if you want to go in a whole new direction now? Start a new career? Begin a new life?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “No moves left after retirement.” “In addition, you have to wait until everyone else retires before the game can be decided.”

“Well, this is boring.” I said. “I have to just sit here and watch while you move your car around the board?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Stop complaining.”

“Don’t I even get a rocking chair and a glass for my dentures?”

“Shut up,” she said.

“If you think you have the most money and the most stuff you can retire to Millionaire Acres, if not, then you have to go to Countryside Acres.”

“So are you saying that retiring to the Country is the less attractive retirement option? What if I don’t want to retire to a mansion and would prefer a little house in the country with solar panels and composting toilets and an organic garden?”

“I’m really sorry I agreed to play this game with you,” she said.

“But really,” I insisted, “What if all my money and my stocks and my career as an Entertainer don’t mean a hill of beans to me? What if all I want to do is practice yoga and live in the country and raise baby carrots and go kayaking and mountain climbing and visit India and play Fur Elise on the piano?”

“That’s not an option in this game,” she said. “Spin.”

“I don’t want to spin!” I said. “This is a really stupid game.”

“Game” is the operative word here,” she said. What you seem to want to do is play your own game.”

“Bingo!” I said

“You wanna play bingo? she asked.

“No! I want to play my own game of life, not this one. This one is NO life. This one is the antithesis of life. This game is hell.

“Hate to break it to you, but this is the predominate game of our culture,” she said. “Life is a career and money and a house and stocks and insurance and taxes and retiring to Millionaire Acres.”

“Spin,” she said. “Let’s see who wins.”

“I need a glass of wine first,” I said.

“That won’t change anything, you know,” she said.

“I know.”

“We don’t have to play the Game of Life if you don’t want to,” she said.

“Good,” I said, “because I hate this game.”

“Me too,” she said.

“Let’s play our own game,” I said.

“Good idea,” she said.

“Spin.”

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