The secret of LIFE...

I'm going home.

*Cue that awful song from American Idol*

The cornfields of south central Minnesota will be welcoming their native daughter back home these evening, as I make my way through the twists and turns, the cows and UFOs (unidentified farming objects). I couldn't be more thrilled for my 6 hour drive home to see my family (particularly my Grandma Guckeen-- prayers for her please).

For three whole days, I get to forget that I'm a grown up. And return to my beloved post as the baby of the family.

Classes are out at universities across the nation. Summer is beginning. Vacations have been planned. College freshmen are catching up on all the sleep they lost in the past 9 months by sleeping in until 2 p.m. every day and laying out in the sun the rest of their waking hours.

And here I am...at my desk...in my cubicle...no end in sight.

How the heck did I get here?

It's officially been a year since I've entered the "real world," a place that puts a big HECK NO sign over eating when I want to, shopping when I want to, sleeping when I want to, and most importantly-- doing whatever the heck I want to do. Apparently, this is the real world.

I wonder why it took me a year post-college to figure that out.

Given the rising gas and food prices and my swift decline into poverty, I have come up with the ultimate money making solution.

I am going to sue Milton Bradley, the maker of my favorite childhood game, "The Game of Life." Which as it turns out, has absolutely nothing to do with what life is actually cracked up to be.

My case in point:

So maybe I was on the Dean's list a time or two at MU-rah-rah. Last time I checked though, the dean never handed me some $200,000 Life card telling me I'd just found a cure for the common cold. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure you don't get one of those when you buy a house or pop out a couple of kids either. As a matter of fact, I'm relatively certain you have to pay a couple hundred thousand when those sorts of life events roll around.

There is no large red STOP sign in life telling you when to get married (that's what all your married friends are for). And trust me, if finding a husband was as easy as picking up a teeny tiny blue piece of plastic and shoving it in my generic red suburban (which runs on finger power alone-- no gas), I would have hit that milestone by now.

(In the Game of Life you actually have to graduate from college before you accomplish such craziness, which at least gives me one reason to hand out kudos to Milton Bradley).

While I am immensely grateful for the fact that men in general are not generic pieces of blue plastic, because I for one don't want to marry a generic piece of blue plastic, I really wish someone would tell all us ladies which "men" are crappy and which ones are good...like who would choose the piece that you used to chew on when you were five? No one!

I am also eternally grateful to the fact that there is not a major stop sign in life for all the singletons out there...otherwise a lot of singletons out there may be stuck a heck of a long ways from Millionaire Acres until they're 85 looking for their plastic spouses.

Having kids, much like acquiring a husband, also appears to be much crappier in real life. I don't know a single woman who magically just gets to pick whether they want a son or daughter and plop it in their car (no car seat necessary) without at least a good few months of morning sickness and a horrendous little event called labor.

I can't find a single job on this earth where you can just steal your best friend's salary whenever you darn well choose (or at least when you land on a spot that says you can trade salaries with a player). But when I do, I'll let you know.

And when was the last time you randomly decided to fund your own $30,000 music video?

That's what I thought.

When I play the Game of Life, everyone is automatically insured. No questions asked, no money down. Sure that goes against the rules, but really-- some rules were just made to be broken. (Aside from all the life insurance companies out there, who really wants to teach their five-year-old about buying insurance?) This is almost certainly illegal in real life.

And speaking of illegal things, there is no jail in the Game of Life. Perhaps it's because there are no crimes committed, no major travesties other than your average run of the mill craptacular events. Which leads me to believe that Mr. Milton and Mr. Bradley are holding out on something major that could change the world-- world peace. Cause with no jails and no crimes and no major hardships, they obviously have the answer for that somewhere.

Perhaps it's actually God's preview of what could've happened had Eve not eaten the dang apple?