Computer Games / A Series of Unfortunate Events

I read this post from Shingot about him beating his computer game addiction. OK I make it sound worse than it is but he’s spending more time away from computer games and that’s a good thing. So I got a computer game story of my own to tell.

I had a friend who was coming over to my place to use the facilities. I dun mean the toilet, but the swimming pool. I guess that includes the toilet too but you know what I mean.

I don’t invite friends home in any case, but if they stay downstairs there’s no problem. But that means no dinner or anything.

So I was checking out the swimming pool and trying to figure out what time they have swimming lessons for kids. It’s very irritating because they take up the whole pool, they swim breadth-wise and make it impossible for you to do laps. I asked the security guard about the swimming lessons. He knew nothing. I concluded that he was an idiot.

I went into my condo clubhouse to check it out. There were no posters about swimming lessons anywhere, so I couldn’t find out. I suppose you had to find the swimming instructor and ask him. I saw the arcade machines, so I thought I would go in for some Bubble Bobble. Tried to change a $2 into 50 cent coins, but the machine wasn’t working.

Never mind, I still had 2 50 cent coins on me. So I popped one into the arcade machine. It didn’t go through. I raised up the arcade machine a few cm and slammed it down. No reaction. Never mind, I thought. Maybe if I put my second coin in, both will go in at the same time. It has happened before. I put it in. No action. I was furious.

I was about to kick the machine, when a thought reined me back. What happens if the security guard finds out? But didn’t I just conclude that he was lazy and stupid, so I kicked the machine a few times. Nothing happened, as in the coins didn’t unjam, and the security guard didn’t come for me. But my right slipper broke. It was a bad day for me.

I shuffled out of the clubhouse and back home. It’s hard to walk when you’re wearing flip flops with broken straps. At one point I was walking on asphalt, in the mid day sun, it felt like an Indian fire walking ceremony.

I remembered that I had another pair of slippers which broke – 5 years ago. But I never threw it out – probably it didn’t take any living space since it was outside the door. But I went to check which side was broken. Miracle of miracles, it was the left one that broke. So now I can throw away the right of a pair, the left of another pair, and I still have one (albeit mismatched) pair to work with. This is great!