The Comfy Corner

It’s a three-hour drive followed by an evening at the Super 8 in the-middle-of-nowhere, Indiana. The only nearby restaurant is a Taco Bell (mildly exciting, I must admit, but still sad) and the front desk person at the hotel says, “when people wanna have fun around here, they generally stay at home.”  To top it all, your TV is missing key channels such as ABC and NBC. So whaddya do?! For me, recently, the answer is clear - play Words with Friends until your phone dies. Or, play my new Boggle-inspired personal favorite, Scramble with Friends.

I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t fall asleep because my mind is on an endless journey of letter combinations. Instead of drifting smoothly into dreamland I am chanting, “mar, ream, mare, mares, ram, rams, reams, mere, smear…” It’s actually becoming a problem. The worst part is, I’m not just playing with actual friends. I get impatient when my real friends don’t play quick enough so I play random opponents. I sit there battling with “rachelisbugmad” and I imagine this snotty, greasy-haired, little twelve-year-old girl absolutely destroying me at this stupid word game. What once was a game becomes a battle of wits and conquering the unknown. By beating this anonymous girl, I am proving to myself that I have what it takes to get through any random situation. It’s become a reflection of my life!

And then there are Words with acquaintances, Words with Facebook-friends-that-I-don’t-really-know-but-stalk-occasionally, and Words with past-professors. Each one presents its own mental stresses. I find myself sending them subliminal messages through the words I choose. I play “fart” for 8 points and they respond with “classy” for 12. It’s a whole language we’ve created and I giggle for hours afterward. Once I finish giggling I begin to evaluate my life. I think about how I ignored that phone call from my mother because I was trying to put the letter “z” on a triple word tile. I think about how I didn’t eat dinner because I was trying to decide if I could make “poop” into a longer word (Is “shipoopi” an actual word?)

And now as I write this blog, I begin to realize that what I have achieved from hours of gameplay and total word domination is – an addiction. I could be using my time in much better ways. I could be having dinner with friends, laughing with friends, watching movies with friends. REAL friends. Not virtual board game versions of my friends. So as good as my word game skillz have gotten, I think it is time to lay it to rest for a little while. I have an addictive personality when it comes to computer games. I once spent an entire week playing the Sims until I developed a headache so bad I was on the floor crying. I would say to myself things like, “My happiness meter is low.” This tells me that it is time to light a candle, curl up in my comfy corner, and contemplate better ways to use my time while on this tour. Stay comfy ya’ll, put down your phones and play with real friends.