Thursday, March 12, 2009

Excitement is in the Air

I got off the phone with my Mom tonight and she's really excited for me to come home for Spring Break. The reason? She wants to challenge me to a game of Mario Party because she's tired of playing single player mode. I never really pegged my Mom as a gamer of sorts, but all the signs were there. For example, when my brother and I were younger she would buy new Nintendo or Sega games and volunteer to play with us AKA kicked one of us off so she could play too. She would also always make a stop at the arcade when we went to the mall so that we could play some games on our way out, and she was usually the last one to be playing. I now wonder if she was the last one playing because she was actually good at the games or if it was because she had all the quarters and could keep playing. I'll ask when I get home. Most recently, she bought me a Nintendo DS for my 21st birthday (because that is every 21 year old's dream present) and volunteered to test it out AKA kicked me off so she could play too. I now see the pattern. But all of this reminded me of Celia Pearce's piece on Baby Boomer Gamers and how it is not really uncommon for people over 40 to be playing computer games, which I used to think was. I thought it was weird at first when I bought my mom her own DS for her birthday, but then I realized that it's something that would make her happy and I want nothing less for her so I had it shipped to the house and she's been playing ever since January. Now it's only going to bring us closer together. Until I annihilate her, that is. Then it's going to be a little weird for a while, but I'm sure she'll get over it. -Renee

No comments: