Part Three of Housewife Turned Space Captain: the Game

(You are reading this story in progress. to start at the beginning, please click here. To go to the Table of contents, click here. This story is being written live, daily, and with some audience participation in October 2013).

10/10/13-

   All this stink over a little video game, I don’t get it.

   Kyle and Julio were playing their newest video game, “Theommis Wars.” I thought it was “The Amish Wars” at first, and then, when they cajoled me into playing the game with them, I saw the actual name. I asked them who or what the Theommis were, but they didn’t know.

  Anyway, they needed a fourth player. One of their online friends had dropped off the game or something, and they wanted me to fill in. So I was like, “Ok, I’ll play.” I mean, I like video games ok. They make me nervous and my hands sweat, and yes, sometimes I get a little sensitive if people are giving me too much of a hard time, but these are kids, right? Nothing to worry about.

  Anyway, in Theommis wars, you’re flying a space ship. Only it’s a lot like a hot-air balloon or what do you call it? A blimp? There’s another word for it, like the rock band. 

  A Zeppelin.

  So you fly a Zeppelin, and it’s weird, because you don’t think you’re going to move fast, but you do, and the damn thing swoops and banks in this crazy way. I actually had to pause the game for a bit and take a motion-sickness pill, because I was going to throw up. It’s all this crazy motion.

  So I play the game, and there are all of these challenges you have to go through, like obtaining the gravity drive, stealing into a space fortress in the middle of the night, laying siege to a pre-space-flight civilization, etc. It’s neat. Weird, but neat.  And half of the civilizations you meet are these kind of steam-punk aliens that you feel really bad for because you’re—you know—subjugating them. All with this one little ship.

  Well, you get more ships later on, when you become Fleet Admiral, but the first 15 levels are all with one little ship.

  I got really into the game, and as I kept winning, I got less scared. At first, the kids were making fun of me, talking smack, doing what kids do, but after a while, they shut up and just did what I told them. Apparently the guy who dropped out was the Captain. And, well, I’m a Mom, so I’m pretty good at giving orders and organizing things.

  To make a long story short, we won.

  The boys freaked out. They jumped up and down and broke some glasses (which I made them clean up), but they wouldn’t stop whooping and hollering that no one had ever beaten the game. They both hugged me and high-fived me all night, and when George came home, they told him all about it. Even he was impressed.

It was fun, although it was a little embarrassing. I mean, it’s just a video game.

  I’m actually kind of glad it happened, because if it hadn’t, I might not have ever written in hear again.

  I missed writing this morning. I was just so busy with getting the kids ready

  Why am I lying?

  I wasn’t busy.  Or, I wasn’t any busier than usual. Really, I just didn’t want to open up the journal. I didn’t want to read what I wrote last night, to even remember it. That’s why I started this on a new page. So I wouldn’t have to look at last night’s entry.  And here I am, bringing it up, when I was happy just to let it live in the past.

  Maybe I’ll go downstairs and sneak in another game. I’m sure they have a single-player version.

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