Obsession

Several years ago my son gave me a Nintendo DS for Christmas with a cute virtual Dog training game. This may seem a strange gift for a 20-something son to give his 50-somehting mother but ever since he got his first Nintendo game system I have been obsessed with video games. I would stay up late at night playing the first Mario Brothers game and finished it before he or his friends. t. One little boy's mother told me I was the coolest mom to her kids because I could play video games, an activity she found as exciting as watching paint dry.

Over time I have narrowed my focus on the kinds of games I enjoy. I do not like the 'shoot'em up' games or those that require a lot of manual dexterity. I do like the puzzle type games where you either have to solve a puzzle to advance to the next level of play or those based on shapes or numbers. The virtual Dog training game that came with the DS was a real bust as I do not the patience to wait around for time to pass before I can walk the dog or feed it.

My most recent obsession has been the Sudoku Girdmaster game for the DS. I started working on this late last year and started getting obsessed when I realized I could actually solve some of the harder puzzles without breaking a sweat. I've played it in bed when I couldn't sleep, in the doctor's waiting room, in the bath, in the car at the drive-up teller and in restaurants while eating. I finally threw in the towel yesterday with only 3 of the 300 Suduko grids in the game incomplete. The game proudly told me that I had spent 191 hours solving the puzzles but that did not count the numerous times I had to retry various grids like the 10 plus times I tried the hard level grid number 118 without a final answer. I now find that it is almost impossible for me to solve a paper based grid as I am always looking for my stylus to record guesses in the empty spaces.

I don't think I have ever spent as much time on a single activity in my life. I know that if my mother was still alive she would snort in disgust at my Sudoko playing. My excuse is that I am an obsessive type person. From quilting to stash busting, I easily get obsessed with a particular activity to the exclusion of all others. And besides, don't all the geriatric experts claim that as we age our brains need puzzles and such to keep our brains healthy?

I guess my brain is 191 hours healthier than if I spent that time cooking or cleaning. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.