Day Nine of Lent-Video Games

The girls went out tonight...Zoe: babysitting and Shoshanah: girls night out with our adopted daughter, Hannah. So, Tim and I fired up the Wii and were playing Mario Kart. Video games have changed by leaps and bounds from the 80's. It got me thinking about all the times we played video games when we were younger.

Early on our family didn't have an Atari but I can remember playing at friends' homes that did. One such example was a night at Kadi Valva's house. We played Space Invaders until we thought our thumbs were going to fall off. At 3:00 a.m we took a nap, but were back up by 7:00 am. We set out hunting down a tube of BENGAY in order to even be able to carry on with our obsession. Honestly, as a mother there is no way I'm going to let my girls play video games into the wee hours of the night. Certainly her mother was unaware—I'm sure she would have vetoed such an activity.

In seventh grade I would go to the Montgomery's house to babysit. Once Victor and I were able to get Vanessa to bed we would fire up their game station. I think my favorite game was one called Jailbreak. There was this little dude dressed in his prison garb that had to catch bombs being dropped along the top of the screen before they hit the bottom. Why the game fascinated me I have no clue. Victor was so good at the game, however, that I hardly ever got a turn as the second player. When it was my turn I was so inept I usually missed one of the bombs within a few minutes and then handed the controller over to Victor. During the time he played I was able to wash dishes, vacuum the house, fold laundry (just kidding but seriously, the kid wouldn't lose).

When we were in high school my great uncle Arnold gave us a full size arcade game for our game room. It was a driving game. If my parents would have ever seen how badly I drove on the racetrack they undoubtedly would have never let me get my drivers license. I probably would have taken the car out anyway...perhaps I actually did take the car out without my license, but, that is a story for another day.