When Nephew Chick was just a wee tyke, one of his favorite activities was playing games. It didn’t matter how many times he played the same game, he always wanted to play it one more time. Though I worked hard to earn my self-proclaimed title of Coolest Aunt, this was one area where I fell woefully short.
I have an almost clinical aversion to game playing.
Sister Chick has dubbed me a Game Grinch because she LOVES games while I HATE them. Nonetheless, when she sent me a request to play Words With Friends (WWF) with her, I dutifully downloaded it to my phone and proceeded to play.
Just call me the Game Martyr.
Words with Friends is an electronic version of the game Scrabble. To start a game, you can either send a request to a friend if you know his/her user name, or you can have the program choose from a pool of random strangers who have indicated an interest in finding new electronic gaming partners. Much like the board game, you take turns back and forth creating words from a slate of 7 letters selected for you. To input a word, you drag the letter tiles into squares on the game board. The game will let you know whether or not the word you’ve submitted is legitimate by accepting it and tallying up your word score, or by rejecting it, thus forcing you to try again.
That first game was kind of fun. It’s challenging to come up with words from a limited selection of letters. Plus, I beat Sister Chick handily.
Not one to take losing lightly, she sent me another request to play and I beat her again. We played a third time and the results were the same.
Finally, she sent me one last request to play. I heard through the grapevine that she was very frustrated at her lack of wins since SHE is the one who loves games.
I beat her again.
By now, Sister Chick had had enough and refused to send any more game requests to me. Instead, she talked the Big Man into downloading Words With Friends and a Boggle-like word game called Ruzzle so that they could play each other.
In retrospect, I now realize that this must have been a grand scheme on her part to get revenge on me for beating her so many times.
The Big Man became a WWF and Ruzzle addict.
He plays in the morning. He plays in the evening. He plays in his car, with opponents near and far. He plays before sleeping and again upon waking. He even plays in bathroom and in restaurants and bars.
His passion for game playing is apparently limitless. Trying to talk to him while he’s playing is pointless—he expects me to wait until after he’s finished his timed, two-minute turn on Ruzzle. To make matters even more annoying, he turns up the volume on the games’ sound effects so that I constantly hear bells and chimes and clacks and dings from all over the house. I even hear these stupid noises in my sleep!
Sister Chick has had her revenge. She created a monster—one with whom SHE doesn’t live. The winning word in this game is f-o-u-l.
Well played, Sister Chick, well played.
What’s your favorite game to play on your phone/tablet/computer?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013
{ 0 comments }
