In a maze of video games

I started so simply: a birthday gift of an electronic game. I was curious. What was so great about a happy face munching its way around a maze? I justified playing before wrapping, “I want to make sure it works. It was a demonstration game.”

The game worked fine, just fine. Husband said, “First time I ever saw a gift used so much before it was given to someone.”
I mumbled a half-hearted, “I’ll wrap it as soon as I finish using these three extra turns.”
A couple hours before my son opened his game, I wrapped it up and stuck a bow on top. After he opened it, I had to make sure he knew how to play it.
The game wore out very quickly.
In the summer, I found a master board to be connected to the TV with half dozen games cartridges at a garage sale. A neighbor kid had tagged along with us. He whispered a shocked, “That is a good price. Buy it!” I found out later that the whole thing cost less than the cost of one game.

It was a great buy, except . . . we didn’t own a TV. Never had in our 14 years of marriage. Another garage sale remedied that and I was on my way to electronic heaven.
Supper could wait. Phone calls might be returned later, sick children were told to take a couple of aspirins and go to bed. I was heading for the top banana on the maze game.

“Mom! MOM! I want to play. It’s my turn.”
“In a minute. I want to finish this.”
Three games later, he was still waiting and I was telling him he had to wait, “’cause I am the mother, that’s why.”
We slowly accumulated a large library of game cartridges. My children used my favorites as legal tender in the neighborhood swap meets. I found more games that I liked.
I was up early and sat up late, wearing out the controls my wrist.
One day I stopped, looked up and realized the house was in dire need of a mother. “I am not going to play this game again for a least a month,” I said.
I stayed away – for a while. Then we bought another maze game and simply had to try it out. I reached for the game’s controls and lost my own.

Time and again I found myself in the cycle of the pull towards and push away from the electronic games.
Only with time did my interest wane. We sold the game. I was free from the pull and demand of an electronic master.
When we bought our first computer game, I was determined to remain uninvolved. But our in-house hacker stayed up late one night and found a three-D building block game that was irresistible.

Within days, my name was in every slot on the high scorers board. The easy levels lost their challenge, so I chose levels that I could rarely score in and played into the night trying to anyway. Only the sharp pain in my wrist stopped me.
Repeatedly, I’ve kicked the habit. Occasionally I sneak in a couple quick ones on the game I promised my son I would never play. But this time, I really have this habit under control. I’ll tell you how I did it, as soon as I finish this game.


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