It's the Game of Life!

I haven't played the Game of Life since 1997 when Mellers and I used to gather in my Nan's nightmarish red-carpeted basement, but there was a time when it was my favourite game. (These days my favourite game involves an old school Nintendo and irritating overusage of the Power Glove line from The Wizard. Also, lest we forget, a whole wealth of MS-DOS games of which Hero's Quest is like pixellated gold.)

I used to always hope for the Victorian House, and my preferred career was as an Artist who was paid $100,000. I was constantly hoping to land on the twins square, so I could have twin girls who would have blonde hair and blue eyes. One twin, Elizabeth would like books. She'd be introverted and shy, but really smart, which is something that her boyfriend since middle school, Todd or Tom or something would really appreciate. The other twin, Jessica, would be more extroverted. She'd enjoy parties and help her sister solve the mystery of the magic pen at summer camp.

For those of you who live under a rock and don't know what the Game of Life is, your gamepiece is a little plastic car which you drive throughout the game pieces, collecting money for retirement and gathering life experiences as you go. Like... discovering a new planet, helping out at the Special Olympics or discovering that the black abysmal pit of your soul has been lying all this time. You really don't like AFI. Underneath it all, you secretly learn to scream Wouldn't It Be Nice in a car while driving down the highway, possibly on your way to see Step Up, paying really close attention so you can emulate all the dance moves in your living room later while wearing a sparkling gold leotard and copious amounts of face glitter.

Finding out what my eventual future might be was my favourite part. This time around I was a Salesperson with a $100,000 salary who lived in a mobile home. I like to think that this is because I was attempting to cover up for the fact that I was secretly embezzling funds from Walmart and using them to pay for mafia dealings in Western Europe, as I was the Top Secret Leader of an underground mafia family. ... Of ... of angry Canadians.

When we opened the box we also discovered that... I had made cards of my own way back in 1997. These homemade cards were entitled "Husband Cards", and you could have your choice of one of four super awesome spouses: Steve Urkel, Michael Jackson, Eric Von Detten (this was Mellers' request) or .... Leonardo DiCaprio... accompanied by a poem.

Even though this kills me a little inside, here is that poem:

"Leo, Leo you're so fine
No one can have you
'Cause honey, you're mine!"

Followed by a bunch of lines of "Mmmmm LEO.", like he was a delicious snack cake whose insides were made of Tigerbeat and J-14, with a smattering of fact sheets listing his favourite colour and how his favourite aquatic creatures were dolphins.

Labels: Suitcase of Memories