25. The Gaming Console (5/6)
'Hello!'
...
'HELLO!'
...
'HELLO!'
'Hey! Why are you shouting?'
'I am not shouting, darling, I am merely raising my voice and the reason why I am raising my voice is because you do not reply when I say hello so I figure that maybe you cannot hear me.'
He does not even turn his head towards me. My patience is running out at the speed of light. I watch him: his eyes are on the screen and his hands on the control thingies. Count to 5 I say to myself. You won't manage 10, count to 5.
'All right! What is it?'
'It is that I, your mother, am home now and you should be happy to see me.'
...
I am counting again. One, two, three, then I yell 'AAAAAAAAAAH! PUT THAT THING DOWN!'
I made him jump. That's good. He can hear. He can move.
'What?' He has two settings: absent-minded and aggressive.
Then my mind went blank. Reversal of situation: as his became alert mine went numb. So I do not recall precisely how it happened but it did.
I went to pull the stupid machine from the shelf, it was jammed. My son started to yell at me. Go to your room I yelled back. Find a book. Let me deal with the techie side of things as you are obviously not the one in control here. You are controlled by it.
And all the time I was trying to get this stupid machine off the shelf and it resisted. I gave it a good yank and saw some wires attached to it. Oh that's right I thought: wires! So I went round the back and there were so many wires I did not know which one to pull out. The phone, the TV, the Internet and God only knows what else. But I was fuming, so I grabbed at wires at random. Surely I could plug them all back in afterwards.
'Mum?'
'Mum? What are doing?'
'Nothing!'
I was about to plead for help but the thing came out of the shelf. I grabbed it and took it upstairs.
I stood there in our bedroom with the object in my hands. I was holding it as if it was just about to blow up. Initially I thought I could just hide it one more time and signal the place of hiding with a red scarf. This thing was making me stupid and I was not even playing with it!
I do not know how the idea came to me but I thought. Drop it. Go on I dare you. Accidentally drop it. Not too hard. Just from a short height so that if it does break it won't be too bad and you might be able to fix it or take it to the shop for repairs.
I held it about 10 cm off the wooden floor. I made sure it was not above the rug but above the nice hard wooden floor.
I dropped it.
Oops!
It landed with a bang but did not seem affected at all. These things were tough. That was not good. I could hear a deep voice with a hint of an Irish accent: Come on woman! You can do better! So I raised it more and dropped it with no hesitation. This time it made a satisfying bang when it hit the floor. And oh! A bit had come off! I could see the inside! The green plastic card with the golden thread looked like the keyring I'd bought in the Science Museum.
I picked it up again, satisfied and liberated. The bit that had come off was not broken, it looked just like when you want to change the batteries and you take a cover off. I thought that was perfect. I could fix that if need be with a bit of sello-tape.
I picked up the machine and the bit that had come off, wrapped it in a beach towel and shoved this at the bottom of the cupboard and covered it up with some more beach towels. It was the middle of winter and the beginning of term, no beach outings for us until a very very vey long time. I made a mental note to change our holiday bookings if necessary.
I went back downstairs, cool as a cucumber. My daughter was there and said:
'What was that noise?'
'What noise?'
'Well, we did hear something. Your son was anxious.'
He came down for dinner and said:
'I've done my homework, if I clear the table can I play for 10 minutes?'
'Sorry but it's banned and you know it.' I felt so relaxed! So in control of the situation!
'Banned. Until further notice.'
...
'HELLO!'
...
'HELLO!'
'Hey! Why are you shouting?'
'I am not shouting, darling, I am merely raising my voice and the reason why I am raising my voice is because you do not reply when I say hello so I figure that maybe you cannot hear me.'
He does not even turn his head towards me. My patience is running out at the speed of light. I watch him: his eyes are on the screen and his hands on the control thingies. Count to 5 I say to myself. You won't manage 10, count to 5.
'All right! What is it?'
'It is that I, your mother, am home now and you should be happy to see me.'
...
I am counting again. One, two, three, then I yell 'AAAAAAAAAAH! PUT THAT THING DOWN!'
I made him jump. That's good. He can hear. He can move.
'What?' He has two settings: absent-minded and aggressive.
Then my mind went blank. Reversal of situation: as his became alert mine went numb. So I do not recall precisely how it happened but it did.
I went to pull the stupid machine from the shelf, it was jammed. My son started to yell at me. Go to your room I yelled back. Find a book. Let me deal with the techie side of things as you are obviously not the one in control here. You are controlled by it.
And all the time I was trying to get this stupid machine off the shelf and it resisted. I gave it a good yank and saw some wires attached to it. Oh that's right I thought: wires! So I went round the back and there were so many wires I did not know which one to pull out. The phone, the TV, the Internet and God only knows what else. But I was fuming, so I grabbed at wires at random. Surely I could plug them all back in afterwards.
'Mum?'
'Mum? What are doing?'
'Nothing!'
I was about to plead for help but the thing came out of the shelf. I grabbed it and took it upstairs.
I stood there in our bedroom with the object in my hands. I was holding it as if it was just about to blow up. Initially I thought I could just hide it one more time and signal the place of hiding with a red scarf. This thing was making me stupid and I was not even playing with it!
I do not know how the idea came to me but I thought. Drop it. Go on I dare you. Accidentally drop it. Not too hard. Just from a short height so that if it does break it won't be too bad and you might be able to fix it or take it to the shop for repairs.
I held it about 10 cm off the wooden floor. I made sure it was not above the rug but above the nice hard wooden floor.
I dropped it.
Oops!
It landed with a bang but did not seem affected at all. These things were tough. That was not good. I could hear a deep voice with a hint of an Irish accent: Come on woman! You can do better! So I raised it more and dropped it with no hesitation. This time it made a satisfying bang when it hit the floor. And oh! A bit had come off! I could see the inside! The green plastic card with the golden thread looked like the keyring I'd bought in the Science Museum.
I picked it up again, satisfied and liberated. The bit that had come off was not broken, it looked just like when you want to change the batteries and you take a cover off. I thought that was perfect. I could fix that if need be with a bit of sello-tape.
I picked up the machine and the bit that had come off, wrapped it in a beach towel and shoved this at the bottom of the cupboard and covered it up with some more beach towels. It was the middle of winter and the beginning of term, no beach outings for us until a very very vey long time. I made a mental note to change our holiday bookings if necessary.
I went back downstairs, cool as a cucumber. My daughter was there and said:
'What was that noise?'
'What noise?'
'Well, we did hear something. Your son was anxious.'
He came down for dinner and said:
'I've done my homework, if I clear the table can I play for 10 minutes?'
'Sorry but it's banned and you know it.' I felt so relaxed! So in control of the situation!
'Banned. Until further notice.'
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