issue four / panacea
Your Turn in the Game of Life
Tracie Adams
So you want to win at LIFE? First you have to set up the board, deal the cards, choose a banker you can trust, and pick the red car because it’s sporty and you feel fine with the top down cruising along like you don’t have a care in the world. And you don’t. Yet.
When it’s your turn to spin the spinner, flick that sucker with such a force that it kicks up a wind storm like an oscillating fan set on high speed. Drive that little sports car right over to the MARRIAGE space, and don’t stop to think twice. Just do it. While you’re at it, take out a bank loan, or two, or five. Keep moving as fast as you can around the board, stopping again on the MARRIAGE square because that first one sucked suckage. By now, your little car is getting crowded with three PERSON pegs—you, your new and improved hubby, and a cute little baby boy who refuses to eat vienna sausages even though you tell him that babies love the stuff. That’s a smart one there.
When faced with the option to choose COLLEGE or CAREER cards, take them both. This will add a ton of stress to the game, but you’ve got the money to cover those doctor visits for all the migraines and irritable bowel issues. You’ve got this! Go ahead and trade that hot little red car for a sensible white van because you’re about to hit the mother load when you start landing on all the BABY spaces. And don’t forget to buy that car insurance for the piece of crap van whose side door does that open-close-open-close-thing when you hit the button. Be sure to set aside a little in savings for the day you and your husband decide to upgrade your clunkers to something with working a/c and power windows so you can go through the Taco Bell drive thru without pissing off the sour-faced teenage assistant manager who glares at you while you roll down your window in slow motion and he thinks long and hard about throwing the burritos and nachos belle grande into your driver’s seat.
You started the game with a generous stack of paper money from that banker. Go ahead and see how fast you can make it disappear. Sure, you’ll lose the game but you’re not really in it to win. You’re just trying to survive and not lose your mind.
When the banker tries to entice you to buy a STOCK card, try not to laugh in his face as you explain that you’re investing in PET cards now. Add those little PET pegs to your new white minivan if you can fit them all. Let’s see, you’ll want two dogs, four cats (one inside and the rest for the barn), three guinea pigs, five horses and a smart aleck pony, two bunnies, one dwarf hamster, an undisclosed number of chickens, two goats, three snails, one Jersey cow, and to cover the exotic pet category just throw in two sugar gliders and an aquatic turtle. Bury them all one by one in that little patch of irises and daylilies in the woods beside the driveway. Only do this in the pouring rain. After each burial, stand there with a shovel in hand, alone, crying in the rain and feeling like a fool for grieving so fiercely the passing of a fluffy white bunny murdered by a hound dog. Bawl your eyes out as you lower the best Labrador Retriever you ever loved into the wet freshly turned clay, covering her shallow grave with fresh dirt and fresh tears.
Are you having fun yet?
This would be a good time to double check the rules for your specific edition of the game. Is yours an old school or an updated version? In the newer version, you can choose to adopt an eleven year old boy with special needs, and then you can home school all four kids all the way through high school. To do this, you will need to trade in your CAREER card for all the FAMILY cards you’re hoarding. Before you hand over that CAREER card for good, take a whack at being self employed. Have you ever thought of converting a forty foot school bus into a
mobile party bus so you can hang out with middle school children who’ve never heard of deodorant and love to engage in guerrilla warfare tactics hurling balls at one another and slamming their sweaty bodies against the gymnastic mats while the bitchin’ speakers drown out their incessant war cries with some fine eighties tunes? Girl, you should think about it. You only live once.
Landing on the HOUSE space, don’t sell that little piece of paradise. Instead, empty your bank account and spend every penny of your hard-earned, excessively taxed income to renovate the place your kids grew up so they can always come home to the four-wheeler trails leading to the river, the riding ring where they acted out stories with swords and capes on horseback, the tall poplar trees that still bear the scars of the zip-it line they once held, and the loft in the barn where they camped out listening to Hank the Cow Dog stories on cassette tapes on loan from the library. Repair that paved driveway where they learned to ride bikes and scooters, wrote their names in chalk, and played hopscotch. The repairs will be costly because you neglected to maintain it and so it looks like it survived an earthquake with all those deep cracks. It’s your own asphalt that happened, so fix it.
As you go round and round the board, you’ll land on those BABY spaces multiple times but don’t go adding another PERSON peg just yet because miscarriages don’t count even when it’s your second trimester and you already decorated the nursery. Just keep spinning and spinning and
spinning. Add two pink and two blue PERSON pegs to your car, and just keep spinning. You’ll need lots of energy to stay in the game. You won’t have it, but keep spinning as you change diapers, rock that colicky one, teach them all to read and grow vegetables and milk a cow and write brilliant essays and love Jesus and their neighbor. Teach them everything your mind, body, and soul can pour out. Then try not to fall apart when they leave and reject the things you taught them, choosing to blaze their own trails instead. Just remember the good times you had driving them from soccer to football to piano to dance to horse shows to 4-H Club to scuba camp, drama camp, cheerleading camp.
This would be the perfect time to land on that MIDLIFE CRISIS space, wouldn’t it? Question everything, find no answers, and just go back to square one on the board. Take a good look at your life and be grateful but not until you throw a tantrum and have a little psychotic break. Pass right by that RETIRE square because no one stops there anymore. Oops! A new president was elected and you just lost half of your 401K. Good thing you played it safe and bought COUNTRYSIDE ACRES instead of the risky MILLIONAIRE ESTATES.
When the banker declares the winner, and you’re not it, don’t count your money. Count your blessings—four kids, four grandkids, your health, a faithful husband with an above average sense of humor, two perfect dachshunds who lay on you when you’re sad, and one cat named George. Remember that sermon you heard once about losing your life to gain it. Maybe you’re a winner after all.
When it’s your turn to spin the spinner, flick that sucker with such a force that it kicks up a wind storm like an oscillating fan set on high speed. Drive that little sports car right over to the MARRIAGE space, and don’t stop to think twice. Just do it. While you’re at it, take out a bank loan, or two, or five. Keep moving as fast as you can around the board, stopping again on the MARRIAGE square because that first one sucked suckage. By now, your little car is getting crowded with three PERSON pegs—you, your new and improved hubby, and a cute little baby boy who refuses to eat vienna sausages even though you tell him that babies love the stuff. That’s a smart one there.
When faced with the option to choose COLLEGE or CAREER cards, take them both. This will add a ton of stress to the game, but you’ve got the money to cover those doctor visits for all the migraines and irritable bowel issues. You’ve got this! Go ahead and trade that hot little red car for a sensible white van because you’re about to hit the mother load when you start landing on all the BABY spaces. And don’t forget to buy that car insurance for the piece of crap van whose side door does that open-close-open-close-thing when you hit the button. Be sure to set aside a little in savings for the day you and your husband decide to upgrade your clunkers to something with working a/c and power windows so you can go through the Taco Bell drive thru without pissing off the sour-faced teenage assistant manager who glares at you while you roll down your window in slow motion and he thinks long and hard about throwing the burritos and nachos belle grande into your driver’s seat.
You started the game with a generous stack of paper money from that banker. Go ahead and see how fast you can make it disappear. Sure, you’ll lose the game but you’re not really in it to win. You’re just trying to survive and not lose your mind.
When the banker tries to entice you to buy a STOCK card, try not to laugh in his face as you explain that you’re investing in PET cards now. Add those little PET pegs to your new white minivan if you can fit them all. Let’s see, you’ll want two dogs, four cats (one inside and the rest for the barn), three guinea pigs, five horses and a smart aleck pony, two bunnies, one dwarf hamster, an undisclosed number of chickens, two goats, three snails, one Jersey cow, and to cover the exotic pet category just throw in two sugar gliders and an aquatic turtle. Bury them all one by one in that little patch of irises and daylilies in the woods beside the driveway. Only do this in the pouring rain. After each burial, stand there with a shovel in hand, alone, crying in the rain and feeling like a fool for grieving so fiercely the passing of a fluffy white bunny murdered by a hound dog. Bawl your eyes out as you lower the best Labrador Retriever you ever loved into the wet freshly turned clay, covering her shallow grave with fresh dirt and fresh tears.
Are you having fun yet?
This would be a good time to double check the rules for your specific edition of the game. Is yours an old school or an updated version? In the newer version, you can choose to adopt an eleven year old boy with special needs, and then you can home school all four kids all the way through high school. To do this, you will need to trade in your CAREER card for all the FAMILY cards you’re hoarding. Before you hand over that CAREER card for good, take a whack at being self employed. Have you ever thought of converting a forty foot school bus into a
mobile party bus so you can hang out with middle school children who’ve never heard of deodorant and love to engage in guerrilla warfare tactics hurling balls at one another and slamming their sweaty bodies against the gymnastic mats while the bitchin’ speakers drown out their incessant war cries with some fine eighties tunes? Girl, you should think about it. You only live once.
Landing on the HOUSE space, don’t sell that little piece of paradise. Instead, empty your bank account and spend every penny of your hard-earned, excessively taxed income to renovate the place your kids grew up so they can always come home to the four-wheeler trails leading to the river, the riding ring where they acted out stories with swords and capes on horseback, the tall poplar trees that still bear the scars of the zip-it line they once held, and the loft in the barn where they camped out listening to Hank the Cow Dog stories on cassette tapes on loan from the library. Repair that paved driveway where they learned to ride bikes and scooters, wrote their names in chalk, and played hopscotch. The repairs will be costly because you neglected to maintain it and so it looks like it survived an earthquake with all those deep cracks. It’s your own asphalt that happened, so fix it.
As you go round and round the board, you’ll land on those BABY spaces multiple times but don’t go adding another PERSON peg just yet because miscarriages don’t count even when it’s your second trimester and you already decorated the nursery. Just keep spinning and spinning and
spinning. Add two pink and two blue PERSON pegs to your car, and just keep spinning. You’ll need lots of energy to stay in the game. You won’t have it, but keep spinning as you change diapers, rock that colicky one, teach them all to read and grow vegetables and milk a cow and write brilliant essays and love Jesus and their neighbor. Teach them everything your mind, body, and soul can pour out. Then try not to fall apart when they leave and reject the things you taught them, choosing to blaze their own trails instead. Just remember the good times you had driving them from soccer to football to piano to dance to horse shows to 4-H Club to scuba camp, drama camp, cheerleading camp.
This would be the perfect time to land on that MIDLIFE CRISIS space, wouldn’t it? Question everything, find no answers, and just go back to square one on the board. Take a good look at your life and be grateful but not until you throw a tantrum and have a little psychotic break. Pass right by that RETIRE square because no one stops there anymore. Oops! A new president was elected and you just lost half of your 401K. Good thing you played it safe and bought COUNTRYSIDE ACRES instead of the risky MILLIONAIRE ESTATES.
When the banker declares the winner, and you’re not it, don’t count your money. Count your blessings—four kids, four grandkids, your health, a faithful husband with an above average sense of humor, two perfect dachshunds who lay on you when you’re sad, and one cat named George. Remember that sermon you heard once about losing your life to gain it. Maybe you’re a winner after all.
Tracie Adams is a writer and teacher in rural Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Oddball Magazine, The Write Launch, WOTL Magazine, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Sheepshead Review.