Holiday Surprises

I know it's a little late to be writing about Christmas (or really, REALLY early, depending on how you look at it) but I wanted to share a few memories of the holiday season that showed how my mom can occasionally get the best of me and surprise me with a gift I didn't expect.

Christmas 2000
It was customary during the great unwrapping of gifts for my mom to direct me to certain presents and steer me away from "the big one" that was to be saved for the end. The "big one" this year was a Game Boy Color video game system. However, as I was looking it over, I was hit by a horrible realization. We had gotten video game systems in the house before, and they had always come with a free game included so you didn't have to buy anything else. However, the Game Boy Color was packaged alone. Not only that, but the video game I wanted the Game Boy for in the first place wasn't here, and there were no more presents under the tree. I tried to explain the situation to my mom, and she just casually strolled over to the tree, reached into the branches, and pulled out another present. It was the game I wanted. You win, mom.

Christmas 2007
This year I was very interested in getting a game for my Nintendo Wii system. My mom said she'd try to get it. Along the way, she decided to try the old "they were sold out" trick. When she opened a conversation with me by saying "About that game you wanted..." I jumped to conclusions.

You see, this game was made for more than one system. I thought she had accidentally bought the PlayStation 2 version of the game instead of the Wii one, which was useless since our house did not have a PlayStation 2, never mind that I'd heard the Wii version was much better. I imagined she may have gotten the PlayStation 2 game because it was ten dollars cheaper, not noticing that it was for the wrong system. When I asked as much, she agreed. "Yeah, that's what happened. Sorry. You'll have to wait until after Christmas when I can return it." Of course, she'd gotten exactly what I'd asked for, and I wound up getting duped again. By a plot I'd come up with FOR her, no less.

I have to stop assuming my mom is a complete dullard when it comes to video games. She is generally aware of how they work and what you need to play, but she's tricked me more than once by feigning ignorance.

It's Okay for Guys to Like Purple

(In all posts like this where I am discussing a news article, I'll have the article linked at the end of my post so you can research the topic further and draw your own conclusions.)

I just came across this article, and I could not kick off my blog any better. It's perfect. This is the tale of a brave and smart older brother, his special younger brother, and a father with a few things to learn. It's not my tale. But I hope I would have done the same if I had been in the older brother's situation.

Two brothers, one in his mid teens and the other a preteen, are shopping. The older brother is going to buy a game as a present for his younger brother. The younger one is adamant about one thing: The main character of the game must be female. Now, games with female leads are unfortunately difficult to come by, but with the help of an employee they found the game Mirror's Edge. Next, the boy wants to know if there are any "girl controllers" that he could play Mirror's Edge with. He selected a purple controller, excitedly telling the clerk that purple was his favorite.

Enter dad.

The "man of the house" is not impressed with his son being so in touch with his feminine side, and he has a different game idea: Dead Island. Dead Island is one of the many horror zombie games out on the market today, and there's lots of guns and gore. However, the kid was steadfast in his selection, and things began to escalate. The father began threatening his son over his choice of game.

Now, if that wasn't bad enough already, consider this: Mirror's Edge is an action-adventure game. The protagonist can wield weapons (including the guns Dad was so insistent about), although it isn't about shooting all of your enemies into oblivion. In fact, the game congratulates the player if they manage to finish the whole thing without shooting anyone. The important point is that Mirror's Edge is a far cry from, say, Hello Kitty Roller Rescue in terms of "girly games". And it doesn't look like any sort of "barbie game" from the box art. It seems that what Dad was so stuck on was the fact that you play as a girl and that he wanted a purple controller to control her with. That's all.

Fortunately, the older brother didn't feel the same way as his father. He chose this moment to step in. "It's my money, it's my gift to him. If it's what he wants, I'm getting it for him, and if you're going to hit anyone for it, it's going to be me." Little brother was crying now, but the employee (who saw the whole thing and wound up writing the article I've found) helped comfort the child. She said, "I'm a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There's nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it's different than what people think you should."

We have been moving towards a more tolerant future for all types of people for a long time. Incidents like this show that while we may have a ways to go, there is hope for a future free of bigotry - or at least with so little of it that it's no longer a major issue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-wolfe/dear-customer-who-stuck-u_b_1190690.html