Wednesday, January 26, 2011

My Son Thinks I'm a Thief...But I Just Want Some Coins!

So, I have been grappling with overcoming an addiction recently. One that I am a little embarrassed to admit to. But, since I don't want cauliflower ears, and I hate wearing unitards, I finally stopped grappling and gave in.

Here goes: I play Cityville on FB.

For those of you who don't know what Cityville is, it's a little game where you build a city, for absolutely no reason at all whatsoever, on FB. For those of you who don't know what FB is, it's F-a-c-e B-o-o-k.

Don't.Judge.

Why do I do it??

Well, I like the little people smiling at me, waving, with little thought-bubbles above their little heads, full of smiley faces, uh, smiling, because they like how I have built the city, which I named, "Winn Made Me Do This." (you'll find out why soon)

I like setting up my suburbs, and the commercial zones, and parks and benches, and trees...

I like sowing fruit and vegetable seeds, and harvesting the crops 4-18 hours later.

I like sending the train out to get goods to furnish my stores.

I like collecting rent from my businesses and 'burb homes, clicking all those coins that bounce about, like I just scored 3 lemons on a nickle slot machine in Atlantic City, or something like that...

I like it I like it I LIKE IT!!!!

Is it productive? No. Do I gain mental acuity? No. Does it make my thighs smaller? No.

But...

I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE it!

Now see, in the beginning, I did not want to play this...game? My dear friend, we'll call her winn, because that's her name, coerced me into playing, because she needed ribbons and building permits and city seals and stuff like that. Hence the name, "Winn Made Me Do This"!!

Each day I had to use my precious energy and time to send her items, so I would take an extra minute or two to build a house, or set up a business, each act making me a tad giddy, though I never admitted to it. I would name the shops things like, "winn's shady" and "winn made me make coffee" and "winn wants toys" and stuff like that. But then she stopped playing. Cold turkey. Gone. Who knows why. Moment of clarity? Sanity?

But not me. And, before I knew it, I had a full-blown city, with little people depending on me, and I desperately needed 12 of my Cityville FB friends to staff my middle school.

So, in the mornings, I would get up, take the dog to potty, feed the dog, wake the kids, force them to eat breakfast, make my coffee, and read about 2 news articles before I started pseudo-swearing and threatening the journalists who wrote the dribble with shin damage, due to their incompetence. Then, I would flip over to FB, write some nonsensical status, like, "Wow! Why does my coffee taste like soup?", press "like" on about 30 billion of my friends' updates, and then, happily, check on my city.

It's beyond that now.

Now, I stumble out of bed, roll down the stairs, hoping the dog can wipe his own paws after going #1 and #2 AND that he will find enough crumbs on the carpet to count as a meal. I throw some cereal on the stairs, hoping some lands in the kids' mouths as they roll down the stairs about 2 hours later than they should. I flip open my laptop, and quickly look outside to see if a meteor hit the ground. If it didn't I skip the news (because what's more amazing than a meteor hitting the ground 20 feet in front of my window anyway?) and shove a coffee filter in my mouth full of coffee grounds as I skip the FB status to instead write something like, "I'm lame. Please send me building grants," and then click on Cityville, praying my eggplants haven't rotted.

I even forced my husband to join so I could sneak into his account and set up plots of land for me to build franchises on.

OK well, it's not that bad. Maybe.




Yeah. It's that bad.

Obviously my kids noticed this obsession taking hold, my eyes popping out of my head as I clicked clicked clicked on businesses and houses and fields of watermelon for hours on end as they made themselves mayonnaise and chocolate chip sandwiches, wondering if they would ever do schoolwork or see the actual sun again. So, in order to get my attention, Jake would sit next to me and watch me play. Amazingly, I heard him speaking over my clickety-click clicking...

Jake: "Mom?"

Me: "Who?"

Jake: "You, mom."

Me: "Oh. Hi John. What's up?"

Jake: "Mom...you're stealing!"

Me: (In my head) *Stealing? What? Time? Moments away from my kids' lives? Internet connection? What???*

Me: "Um, what?"

Jake: "Is that your town?"

Me: "Um, what? No...it's...another one. Some other pathetic person's town."

Jake: "Well, you're stealing!"

Me: "No I'm not!"

Jake: "Yes you are! Those are their coins and you're taking them all!"

Me: "No! No! It's not like that! I MUST visit their town! See? When I click I get coins and hearts!"

Jake: "You're stealing their hearts too? That's so wrong mom!"

Me: "What? Noooooo! Hearts increase my reputation points and I get to move up a level and get more goods and the coins, well, they're mine for helping out!"

Jake: "But you have coins in your own city, why are you taking theirs?"

Me: "Because I am SUPPOSED to! You're only 10! You can't yet understand the sophistication of a social-networking game, such as this, on Face Book. Something you can't join yet. Because you're 10."

Jake: "I don't know mom, looks like you're stealing to me."

Me: "Psh."

Jake: "Can we eat dinner now?"

Me: "What? It's dinner time? It was 10:30 just 20 minutes ago..."

So you see, this game has sucked the life out of me. It's not even a game. I don't know what it is. At least I don't spend any real money on it. I mean sheesh, I won't even spend money to buy myself new socks so I most certainly WON'T buy something for a FB game...even if I know my carousel will NEVER be built because I don't have enough marble stone or the play money to buy it. SOB!

So why am I writing all this down for you, dear reader? Not sure. I mean, with all this time I could have knitted my kids a new wardrobe, or stocked my freezer full of pre-cooked meals, or, I could have started on my taxes, or actually worked out...or something like that. I guess there is a delicate balance, somewhere between having a fun little hobby and losing my mind as my eyebrows grow together while I clear forests for roads and set up bakeries and upscale condos, I am trying to reconcile to.

I mean really, I don't have to justify all of this, do I? Am I really feeling guilty? Could my down-time be used more wisely? When are taxes due again?

But wait! There is hope for me to break away from this mindless, mind-melting mayhem!

I wrote this post instead of harvesting peas!

Yes! YES! And what a post this is! Huh? Huh?

And my kids ate a balanced dinner, and flossed and brushed. And they saw the sun today. Like, while they were outside (score!)

I am not sure how to end this post, it's been so long.

I guess I could end by saying, spring is coming, this blanket of cold icky ick is going away, the sun has decided to show itself again, and so maybe, maybe, I am ready to crawl away from my city in the screen and enjoy other more meaningful, tangible endeavors...

If you are my friend on FB, send me some marble mmmkay? Thanks!


help.me.

4 comments:

w said...

this post was hilarious. also. i kinda feel like it was all about me. man. you're passive aggressive.

SPEAKING FROM THE CRIB said...

the line about staffing the middle school...i thought i would DIE. OH. how i have missed you.

SierraMac said...

Ummm so does this mean I should finally reply to the CityVille request you sent me several weeks ago? I'm not sure I can commit - aack! I'll check it out... :-)

Eric Smiles said...

I stumbled onto your blog while looking for some pics to steal for my Cityville group, Cityville Worldwide. I love your sense of humor and I wish you are still posting.

If you are still playing CV please visit us. we are a small group but mostly we enjoy ourselves.On FB I am EricSmiles.

Take care!

Blog Widget by LinkWithin