Life stinks

One of my morning subway distractions is the collection of games I have downloaded on my cell phone, including a version of The Game of Life. It's a bit different than the 70s version of my sisters' that I used to play as a kid, but the premise is generally the same. I realized this morning, however, that I couldn't play this horrendous game anymore. Think of what it promotes:

1) Money is worth something only when you don't spend it. What's the point of the game? To end up with the most cash in hand. How do you lose the cash? By landing on spaces like "Tour South America" or "Backpack through Europe." In other words, it's better not to do these sorts of things in favor of amassing a Scrooge McDuck-sized pile of gold to sit on in your money room in your old age.

2) Marriage is mandatory, and no homos allowed. No matter what I do, I'll always get that little woman head stuck in my car with me when I pass that marriage space. I guess I could get the man of my dreams by disguising myself as a woman at the game's start, but I don't play that way.

3) Who needs college when you can just screw the other guy? One of the changes from the version I'm used to is that you have a choice whether to go to college or not. Going to college starts you out in debt (fair enough), but you get a few more chances for a good job in salary. But not so fast. There are plenty of "switch salaries with another player" spaces, so that yokel who skipped college can drop his $20K a year salary on you at any moment. Besides, the college-skippers usually end up drawing the $100K salary right away, and they get an extra payday space to boot.

4) In picking a career, pipe dream jobs are the best, but avoid serving the community at all cost. Another change is that the money you lose from spaces usually goes to whomever drew the relevant career. The two most lucrative careers on the board that seem to generate the most money? Athlete and artist. And I don't mean any type of artist, like a singer or a dancer. This is the little stereotypical painter with a palette. Yeah, that's promising career. The worst jobs? Teacher and police officer. Nobody ever lands on those spaces.

5) Children are worth a little upon birth but then serve as nothing but drains on your finances. If I recall, in my old version, you got a bit of money for each kid in your car at the end of the game. Not so in this version. In fact, the only purposes the kids seem to serve after birth are to add to the amount you have to pay when you land on the "pay for your children's education" spaces.

6) Life experience has little value. Another new twist is little "Life Cards" that you get with each event, such as the birth of the child, when you run for mayor or your honeymoon. The turn into cash at the end of the game, but the amount is rarely enough to change the outcome, particularly since the person with the most money gets four of them just for existing.

7) Good housing is for losers. The final new twist is the "buy a house" space, in which you randomly draw a variety of house, ranging from the $40,000 split level to the $200,000 Victorian. These have absolutely no value at the end of the game, so the lucky ones are the ones who draw the split level or the mobile home.

So there you go. I refuse to participate in this conglomeration of the ideals of Grover Norquist, Donald Trump, James Dobson, Matthew Lesko, Lorenzo de Medici, Roseanne Conner and Baron Bombast into a one sickening, evil dystopia. I'm sticking with that boxing game where you beat up the different ethnic stereotypes.

Wait, that's not right, either...