Beaten at my own game
On admitting defeat ungraciously
Reserved a book from the library for the kids called Journey. It’s an illustrated book with no words, the concept being that you make up the story yourself. First read through (girl has magic crayon, frees captive bird, bird turns out to be a drawing by a boy with another magic crayon) was a relative success, with my daughter telling Chris when he got home all about it and that 'Mummy read it perfectly.'
Chris (who was, in that moment as he is in many moments, Captain Cynical) grabbed the book and said 'But... it’s like a linear story. Surely you can’t tell it very differently? Look.' He started to read it sarcastically. 'Oh, I’ve got a magic crayon! And there’s a castle. Oh look. A bird! I’m going to free that bird.' ‘Oh no!' said the guards, ‘but we need that bird to save the life of the lovely Prince. Without the bird he will die. What have you done?'
Chris closed the book and said 'Huh, I guess you can make up a different story for it after all.'
This morning my daughter requested I read it again but 'make it funny.' I ended up reading it exactly the same way as I did the first time.
'Sorry. That wasn’t very funny, was it.'
'Well,' said my daughter, clearly struggling to find a way to spare my feelings, 'No.'
'Get Daddy to read it later. Daddy's funnier than me.' I said (resentfully).
Speaking of this. I’m a crap video gamer. It’s a conundrum. I love them, but I’m terrible at them. My sense of direction is notoriously awful and my 3D mapping skills are useless. If people watch me play games, I get flustered and nervous and end up running around in circles or being killed immediately. Left to my own devices (and perhaps with a map) I can happily plod my way through hours of an RPG or whatever and get to the end. But I get performance anxiety if people are watching.
Not so with Crash Team Racing. CTR was my game back in the early noughties. I played that game for hours and hours and hours. I think I sunk more time into that game than any other game in my life, and I’m pretty sure I’ve logged hundreds of hours on Final Fantasy 9. I knew every shortcut, every corner on which to slide and boost, the perfect place to put TNT boxes to create maximum annoyance to your competitors.
We got the reboot when it came out. Chris immediately beat me. That’s to be expected — he’s very good at these sorts of things and if I’m not chilled out about it, it will drive me insane. (This is why I haven’t played Magic: the Gathering with him in about twelve years).
But to my immense pride my daughter started to get really, really good at CTR. She takes it seriously. So seriously, in fact, that she asked me to look up strategy videos on YouTube for her. And she's really, really close to beating me. Legitimately.
How has this become a thing? My kids being better at stuff than I am? I’m supposed to be Magic Mummy, the one who can get them stuff they can’t reach and open impossible drinks lids and cook them nice dinners and so on. Physically, they won’t have to wait long before they catch up with me (that’s what you get for being five foot nothing.) But in terms of skills? Really?
I can just see it now. One minute I’m a superhero who can protect them from all evils and the next they’re patting me on the head and saying 'Don’t worry Mum, I’ll reach that for you, no need to strain yourself.' Just you wait. A blink of an eye and I’ll be like a granny listening to their grandchildren chatting before asking politely 'and tell me again, dear, what exactly is an Instagram?'
Agh. I’m telling you, it’s all downhill from here. A slow slide into irrelevancy, and soon my kids will be the ones looking after me, chuckling at the silly things I say and opening jars for me.
Or maybe I’m overthinking it.
That’s a possibility.
