Television
"Yo, Fredgut, do we have any clean towels?" Sam asked, coming downstairs to her and Freddie's living room. "I just got Jason down for a nap and I was going to shower and-what's all this?"
She looked around the living room, where Freddie was busy setting up multiple Game Sphere controllers.
"Oh, I was setting up for the Medieval Realm mission," Freddie said.
"Baby…you've been married to me for three years. What makes you think I know what that is?"
"I've told you about-"
"Baby…"
"Right, right, you tune me out when I get too nerdy," Freddie said, rolling his eyes. "Well it's that new videogame I got."
"Huh…no wonder I had no idea what that was," Sam said. "I try to forget that my husband, a grown man, the father of my child, still plays video games."
"Ha, ha," Freddie said dryly. "Plenty of people my age still play videogames. Look at Spencer!"
"Yeah…not your best argument," Sam said.
"Okay, fine, I'm a dork," Freddie conceded. "It's not like you didn't know that when you married me."
"True," Sam agreed.
"Anyway, like I was saying, I'm just getting things set up for the new mission in the game," Freddie said. "It's part of the expansion pack I got. See, there are certain missions that you can only complete using the multiplayer mode, so a few friends are coming over and we're-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Sam said. "Friends?"
"Yeah, just some guys from the office who like this game too," Freddie nodded.
"And you think you can just invite them all here?" Sam exclaimed. "No way! My living room is not gonna be turned into some nerd den!"
"It's my living room too," Freddie pointed out. "Besides, last week you had all your cousins over for some big fight, and I didn't say a peep about that."
"That's family!" Sam argued. "Besides, I don't want it to be all loud and noisy. Jason's been super fussy since he started teething. I finally got him to stop crying after three hours of trying and I'm not about to have him woken up my you freaks!"
"We'll be quiet," Freddie promised. "And if Jason does wake up, I'll handle him."
"Yeah you will," Sam mumbled. "But I still don't want this little mission thing happening here. Can't you go to someone else's house?"
"We have the best T.V.," Freddie reasoned. "Look, Sam, I'm a grown man. I don't need my wife's permission to have some friends over to-"
"Excuse me?" Sam said, raising an eyebrow. "What was that?"
"Er…okay, how about this?" Freddie said quickly. "If I'm allowed to have my friends over for this mission I-I'll…I'll take diaper duty for the next month."
"A month?" Sam said thoughtfully.
"A month," Freddie confirmed.
"Hmmm…" Sam said slowly. "Well…okay."
"Yes!" Freddie cheered, giving his wife a quick kiss. "You're the best, Sam!"
"Just make sure you disinfect in here when you guys are done," Sam muttered. "Try to get some of the geek out."
…
"Alright, guys, we're doing really well here," Freddie said later that afternoon as him and three of his friends from work sat on the couch with their game controllers. "Mark, Bill, you two try and grab that dagger as soon as this fog clears out. That way this giant will be distracted and won't notice me and Carl going for the mystic berries."
"Got it," Mark nodded.
"Man, this game is awesome!" Freddie beamed.
"I could play it all day," Carl agreed.
"And we will," Freddie said. "This is the life, guys. We have the day off of work and there's nothing to stop us from enjoying historically inaccurate medieval adventures for the next twelve hours. Nothing at-"
"Yo nub," Sam said suddenly, coming into the room. "Jason's up, and by the smell of it, he needs to be changed."
"Oh, um, well I'm a little busy here, Sam," Freddie said. "See, the Princess of Scottsburrow is missing and we need to-"
"I'm sorry, do you not remember the little deal we made earlier?" Sam said. "I let you and your nerd pals play your little game here, you take diaper duty."
"That started today?"
"Shoosh yeah it did!" Sam said. "Now go change him before he gets diaper rash!"
"But-But my mission," Freddie said weakly. "If we don't get this dagger and the berries, we'll be defeated by the King's Knight's for sure!"
"So just pause the dumb game," Sam said, rolling her eyes.
"I can't!" Freddie said. "We're playing in real time. Here, just-just take my place for a minute."
"What? No way, I'm not playing this lame game," Sam said.
"Come on, it's just until I change Jason," Freddie begged.
"Fine!" Sam conceded, grabbing his controller. "But be quick! I have a toaster pop waiting for me in the kitchen."
"Thanks," Freddie said. "Now just make sure that you don't go near any poison oak. And don't take gold from any strangers either! And if a woman who looks like a witch comes up to you-"
"Yeah, I'm not listening to any of that," Sam said simply.
"Er…right," Freddie sighed. "Okay, Mark, Bill, Carl, I'll be back in a sec and then we'll continue this mission!"
As Freddie left the room, Sam looked over to the other three men on the couch. Apart from last year's Christmas party at Freddie's office, Sam had never interacted with any of them.
"So," she said, clearing her throat. "You guys are gonna be here all day?"
"That's the plan," Carl said happily.
"None of you have lives to get back to?" Sam frowned.
"Well my cat ran away last week," Billy explained. "So my night's basically free."
"And Saturdays are mother's Bingo nights," Mark explained.
"Jeez…you guys make Gibby look normal," Sam sighed, shaking her head. She turned her attention to the game on the screen. "Alright…so what am I supposed to do? Just run around?"
"No, no, that's how you get chased by the evil jester," Carl said. "See, he's the one who kidnapped the princess in the first place. We've been spending the entire mission so far just trying to take him down. It's been a long process, though. We've traded twelve oxen for a cloak of camouflage to make it through the Tortuous Field Then we built a raft out of straw and old branches to cross the Raging River to buy a medallion that we'll then use to hypnotize the jester, but only after we beat his giant pal and-"
"Why don't I just take this jester freak's hat?" Sam asked, fiddling with the controller. "It's glowing, so wouldn't that mean it has some sort of power?"
The three men gasped as the virtual joker character on the screen collapsed in defeat.
"You-You just won us the whole mission!" Mark said.
"We didn't think we'd even get halfway done with it today," Bill said in disbelief.
"Alright, fellas, I'm back!" Freddie announced, coming back into the room. "Who's ready to get back to the mission?"
"We don't have a mission anymore," Carl said. "Your wife just finished it for us."
"What do you mean?" Freddie frowned. "Did she break the game or something?"
"She beat the game!"
"What?" Freddie exclaimed.
"Yeah, I knocked out this weird jester thing," Sam said.
"The Jester?" Freddie repeated in shock. "No…There's no way! The top players in this game have taken at least ten hours to beat him. There's no way my wife did it in five minutes!"
"Uh, your wife definitely did," Sam snapped, pointing to the television screen. "See?"
"Oh my God…" Freddie said, stunned. "You-You did. But how? You've never played this game before in your life!"
"It's not that hard," Sam shrugged. "Hey…is that a dragon back there?"
"Whoa! She found Darian's dragon too?" Mark exclaimed. "Only twelve gamers in history have found that!"
"Huh…that dragon looks pretty cool, actually," Sam commented.
"Well, great, there goes our afternoon mission," Freddie sighed. "There's no point in continuing now that Sam's done everything for us."
"See, this is why I'm not married," Carl commented.
"Yeah, that's why," Sam scoffed, not taking her eyes off the game.
"Sorry guys," Freddie said as the men got to their feet. "Maybe next weekend we can get together for some War of Warlords or something."
As Freddie's friends filed out of the house, Freddie turned back to Sam. "Well, there you go. My afternoon of gaming is over. You got your wish. So what do you want to do now? Jason fell back asleep after I changed him, so if you want we can-"
"Hey, can this little video game guy swim?" Sam asked, cutting her husband off.
"Huh? Um, no," Freddie said. "Not unless he has the deluxe armor. You get that after you slay the ogre in Fero Valley."
"Interesting…" Sam said slowly.
"Um, what-what are you doing?" Freddie asked. "Are you still playing this game? I thought you said it was lame!"
"I dunno. Fighting, monsters, dragons…those are all kind of neat. I thought this was going to be some weird robot game like you usually play, but this actually isn't half bad."
"So you like one of my videogames?" Freddie smirked.
"Watch it," Sam warned.
"Well, I guess I'll leave you to your game then," Freddie chuckled. "Man…just when I thought life couldn't get any better. First I get a hot wife, now I've got a hot wife who's a gamer too. Ha! The guys down at the Pear Store are gonna be even more jealous of me now!"
….
The next morning Freddie awoke to the sound of his son screaming through the baby monitor on his bedside table.
"Sam," he mumbled sleepily. "Sam, it's your turn to wake up with him."
He got no response.
"Sam…come on, you know he needs to be nursed when he wakes up," Freddie yawned, slowly opening his eyes. "So you need to-"
But as he glanced over at Sam's side of the bed, he found that his wife was nowhere to be seen. He glanced at the alarm clock and saw that it wasn't even seven in the morning yet.
"Weird," Freddie said to himself as he sat up. "Sam's never up this early. Well, willingly, at least."
He dragged his feet into Jason's room, where his son was lying his crib, wailing at the top of his lungs.
"Hey buddy, I know, you're hungry," Freddie said, picking up his son and soothing him gently. "Let's go find mommy so she can feed you, okay? Then you and daddy can spend the morning going through the educational flashcards I picked up for you at the store. They're supposed to guarantee you acceptance into an Ivy League school."
Freddie headed down into the living room where Sam was sitting in the same exact spot as she had been when Freddie had gone up to bed the night before.
"Um, Sam?" Freddie frowned.
Sam didn't reply. She was too busy staring at the screen and quickly pressing the buttons of the game controller to even notice his presence.
"Sam!" Freddie said slightly louder.
"Huh? Oh, hey," Sam grunted in response, still not taking her eyes off the game. "I'll be up to bed in five minutes."
"Sam, it's seven in the morning," Freddie said. "Er, please tell me you didn't sit down here playing that game all night."
"Alright," Sam shrugged. "I won't tell you."
"Baby, you've been playing this game for fifteen hours straight!" Freddie said. "Even I've never done that."
"Well I unlocked this secret level," Sam explained. "And then I became a wizard. I'm battling for control of the kingdom now, so if you don't mind I'm kind of busy."
"I haven't even seen you get up to go to the bathroom," Freddie said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, speaking of which, don't drink out of that bottle on the coffee table," Sam said.
"Gross!" Freddie cringed. "And how is that even possible-Never mind. I don't want to know. Look, you need to take a break. Trust me, as an avid gamer, I can tell you that this right here isn't healthy. The two of us can play again tonight or something."
"Pfft, you'd just slow me down," Sam said. "And I'm not taking a break! I'm only six bags of gold away from being able to trade this dinky dragon in for a bigger one."
"Well you need to nurse Jason," Freddie told her.
"Can't you do it?" Sam asked.
"We've had this discussion before, Sam," Freddie said, shaking his head.
"Ugh, okay, fine," Sam conceded. "I can take on this jousting tournament with one hand. Pass him here."
"Sam!" Freddie exclaimed. "You can't just nurse our infant son in one hand while you play a dumb videogame with the other!"
"Sure I can!"
"Sam, look at yourself!" Freddie said. "You're filthy, you have pizza sauce in your hair! You've urinated in a Mountain Fizz bottle, you haven't slept. Sam, I've seen gamers go down this path, and let me tell you, it isn't pretty."
"Dude, relax, I'm just into one game," Sam said.
"It starts with one game," Freddie said. "And sure, at first it's not a huge deal. So you're a little tired and dirty from playing non-stop…so what? But then you know what, Sam? Soon you're going to unlock every level, finish every mission, conquer every kingdom…and then what? You're gonna start another game and fall into the same rut! And then you'll start another game! And then another! Soon you'll lose your job because all you want to do is play videogames. And you know what else? You're not even going to notice Jason's big moment's because all you will notice will be what's going on in your virtual kingdoms! What if you miss Jason's first words? Or his first steps? Or…Or his first bite of solid ham?"
Sam dropped the game controller and looked up at her husband.
"Sam, you're heading down a scary path right now," Freddie said. "You're heading down the path of a videogame addict."
"Videogame addict?" Sam repeated. "You-You mean like those losers who just stay shut up in the basement all day playing massively multi-player online role playing games? Wait…holy chiz, did I just say that? Holy chiz! What's happening to me? I never used to know what an MMPORPG was!"
"Shh, baby, it's alright," Freddie said, setting Jason down in his playpen and sitting down next to his wife. "Look, it's not too late for you. Just set down the controller and walk away."
"But-But my dragon-"
"Just walk away," Freddie said again. "Come on…do it for Jason."
Sam looked over at her son, who was staring happily over at her.
"O-Okay," Sam said slowly, reaching for the remote to turn off the T.V. "I-I'll stop."
As the game disappeared off the screen, Sam let out a small sob.
"The first few hours are always the hardest," Freddie said, wrapping his arms around her.
"Now I'll never know who the Green Knight was," Sam said weakly.
"It's alright," Freddie said soothingly. "It's for your own good."
"I know, I know," Sam mumbled. "Man…those games though…they're really addicting. How do you manage not to let them take over you like that?"
"Well, I have a beautiful wife and son to keep me occupied," Freddie smiled, kissing her temple. "Listen…sorry I had to get a little tough with you."
"No, it's okay," Sam said. "I-I'm glad you did. That was some speech, though. You just came up with it?"
"Nah, it's the same one I give to Spencer ever few months or so when he falls back into his Pak Rat obsession," Freddie explained.
"Ah," Sam nodded.
