A Father, A Son, and A Motherboard
The Prodigal and I are pondering the purchase of a game console. (Yes, the Wii, Xbox, Playstation 3, … kind of game console – What’s it to ya?)
It’s a nostalgia thing.
A Pox Upon Three Year Olds
When The Prodigal was three, Julie1 (then better known by her slave name, “Mom”) was in charge of the business side of my group’s practice. As part of her job, I had arranged for her and another staff member to attend a three day customer service workshop Disney offered in Orlando. Two days before she was scheduled to leave, an unmistakable, full-blown case of chicken pox erupted, covering approximately 100% of The Prodigal’s body.
In the 48 hours after a quick visit to the pediatrician confirmed our diagnosis, plans were reconsidered, rearranged, aborted, rescheduled, and shuffled numerous times, but the final decision was that we would stick with the original notion: she would go to the Disney conference, and I would stay home with the urchin.
Over the ensuing three days (Friday and the weekend), I was intrigued to discover that the varicella virus reacted synergistically with The Prodigal’s lifelong hypersensitivity to any environmental or psychological irritant to produce massive agitation, profound despair, and temper tantrums.
And it caused problems for the kid, too.
I fortuitously found, however, that the offspring could be seduced into a contented quiescence of focused attention by ensconcing him on my lap and playing The Legend of Zelda2 on my Christmas gift from friends, a machine officially designated the “Nintendo Entertainment System” but universally called “a Nintendo,” because in those days it was, pragmatically, the only gaming console known to the teeming masses.
Consequently, when not sleeping, eating, applying lotion to his lesions, or otherwise caring for the necessities of day to day life, The Prodigal and I spent the entire period of his mother’s absence piloting Link (the hero of the game) through his adventures, completing the requisite tasks late Sunday evening, after which we switched to our only other game, Mario Brothers, which was a distant second to Legend of Zelda in The Prodigal’s preferences but nonetheless acceptable.
By the time Julie returned, the chicken pox symptoms had subsided, and our child was again manageable without electronic assistance.
OK, some kids have memories of the first time Dad took them fishing or to a major league baseball game while The Prodigal and I have mutually fond memories of playing a primitive version of a video game. But, if Norman Rockwell had been hanging around our house that weekend, there is an excellent chance that the cover of Life magazine would have featured an incredibly cute three year old on his father’s lap participating in that all-American activity – video gaming.
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ↩
- For gaming aficionados, the game we played was the first version of Legend of Zelda↩
HA! You mean I have beat the Showalters in obtaining cutting-edge playa stuff??? WOW. I have a WII and a XBox 360!
Go here, watch some of the episodes, then decide!
http://www.purepwnage.com
BOOM! Headshot! (I am ALL about FPS games now, but still spend lots of time in Second Life!)
Seeya Noobs!
Massive multi-player online RPG here (started with EverQuest, then EverQuest 2, now Vanguard: Saga of Heroes). If you’re not into the multi-player games, I suggest The Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind and Oblivion). Morrowind and Oblivion can be played on a console system (but I believe in teh ultimate pwnage of the PC and don’t pay attention to consoles). Vanguard has some heavy system requirements, especially on the graphics side of the equation.
Laiane (who is eagerly awaiting Bethesda’s Half Life 3)