On Christmas Eve 2010, we decided to break into our gifts early. My brother and his wife had to be at the in-laws at o’dark-thirty and there were just too many bits and bobs to coordinate Christmas morning.
Christmas morning became Christmas Eve Paper Shredding Fiesta.
At 31 years of life Santa smiled upon me and blessed me with my very first gaming system.
A 25th Anniversary red Nintendo Wii.
It’s not like I’m a stranger to videogames. I’ve grown up around them thanks to my gamer geek brother. First there was Atari, then a NES, then a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, a Dreamcast, a Nintendo 64, a Playstation, a PS2, and finally a PS3. I’ve grown up around Dig Dug to Call of Duty, Pitfall to Rock Band, Donkey Kong to Grand Theft Auto.
I just never had a desire to play the games. I was the cheering section. The peanut gallery. However, my mother had a hidden passion for Tetris.
When my brother and I were just tinier people, my mother was a homemaker with a little too much time on her hands. The NES, the unassuming tiny grey brick that lived in my brother’s room with the junky TV and across from the waterbed became my mother’s day spa.
A simple waltz into picking up my brother’s dirty clothes became hours of trying to burn through levels. Many times dinner was even late along with my brother’s bedtime due to Mom camped in his room.
My mother’s not a bad person.
Just don’t get between her and Tetris.
You’ll lose an arm.
Or an eye…
So many, many years ago, we don’t know when… Mom clears Level 9.5 and takes a blurry Polaroid of the TV because no one was bound to believe her. That was the end of it. Mom was done with the NES.
So take us to yesterday. The Wii. The wonderful Wii.
I wanted it to play Wii Fit and all the fitness games. Because I am a marshmallow.
You may not be aware but you can download content for the Wii. Classic games, Wii exclusives, that kind of stuff.
For Christmas, I got Just Dance 2, Epic Mickey, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Just Dance made my lungs want to combust, Epic Mickey… While indeed epic reduced my hands to crippled claws.
It was great. I love this thing. I love this thing I forget I’m a novelist. Uh… Oops…
So with some downtime to recover from Just Dance and Epic Mickey… We innocently browse the Wii Shopping Channel.
And we see it.
Tetris.
“Oooh…” says my mother.
“Uh oh…” says I. My ownership of my Wii in jeopardy.
“It is twelve dollars…” I say.
Stupid. Stupid.
“We don’t need it today,” she says.
“Huzzah!” says I in my head because my mother likely doesn’t understand the word.
December 26th was marked with my mother braving the after-holiday sales.
Because she’s crazy.
But she’s a good person.
She comes back laden with a second Wii controller (called a *snerk* Wiimote) and a few other goodies.
Then I break the news.
“I got you Tetris,” I say.
If the act of happiness was audible… My mother’s rush of joy could have shattered glass.
The office my mother and I share has now been converted into a seedy estrogen den… Not unlike a man cave so we can play our silly games in peace.
Tonight… Mom got reintroduced to her old friend Tetris and its new bits and bobs since they last danced in the pale moonlight.
The music is distracting. And at the moment I am a week behind schedule in my new novel. I have to write 2,000 words a day just to keep my head above water.
And I watch my mother play Tetris…
And I’m five years old again in awe of something beyond me. Little puzzle pieces locking together in perfect harmony. Line by line… Flashing… Vanishing
And my mom laughs. She laughs like a demon. She laughs like a badly behaved woman that made history.
She laughs like a mother mystified by the little grey brick and the junky TV by the waterbed.
She laughs in pursuit of a new Polaroid picture.
© Megs 2010