Life Mania

A while back I got into playing casual games, those cartoony games where you solve a puzzle or cook a meal to order. My favorite was a time management game called CAKE MANIA.

You're Jill Evans, a recent culinary school graduate that has keep up with an increasingly difficult line of customers and  design their cakes to order. (The cupcake craze hadn't hit Jill's town yet). In short, you point and click all the places you need her to work. As the game progresses, Jill banks money. And in between rounds you can visit a supply store that offers faster ovens, decoration stations, a TV to distract customers, etc.



Now being unemployed, I have a personal stake in seeing Jill's small business succeed, so I used to play until my wrist gave out from using the mouse. But eventually, after I had all the fancy ovens and quicker frosters and all the bells and whistles, I got to a point when I still couldn't get Jill to move fast enough to beat the time limit on the higher levels. My play dates with Jill got fewer and fewer, and then the ovens went cold. Poor Jill.

A few weeks ago, I got curious. Did I have what it took to beat that final level? Could a few months off give my wrist the break it needed to strengthen?

I opened the game and found Jill in the store. "They send you to the store when you have it all?" I thought to myself. Then my cursor brushed past her feet and I noticed the shopping column flicker. THERE WAS AN OPTION TO BUY FASTER SHOES. In fact, there were two different speeds of faster shoe to select from.

This is how real life goes for me too. I'm running around trying to figure out how to win at things, but the whole time I can never win because I don't have faster shoes. Right now, I don't even know faster shoes are available.