These Birds Are Making Me Angry

I have some problems.  


One of them is that it's possible I tend to get a tiny bit into the computer games that I play.  And when I say a tiny bit, I mean that I get addicted to these games like Charlie is addicted to his morning tiger blood.


Now, I'm not a computer nerd.  But to be fair, that's mostly due to my own limitations.  I mean, I just got an iPhone and in trying to register to play Words With Friends, I ended up with the user name Yyvvhx because I didn't understand that while I was just pressing a bunch of buttons trying to figure out what was going on, I was actually entering a user name. 


 I saw a game pop up and it said "Yyvvhx" was one of the people playing, and I was trying to figure out what kind of idiot uses that for a user name. Then I realized that the other player was "SheriP", which meant Yyvvhx was me.  I've had a series of low moments like that involving computers, so believe me when I say I can't be a computer nerd.


Although, at least I'm not my sister.  She recently got duped by her auto correct and texted "Can you go to anus?"  When she meant to type 'Amy'.  Hee hee!


Many times I can play a game like a normal person.   You know, for enjoyment.  But every now and then I will find a game that leaves me so consumed that I'm surprised I don't actually lick my computer screen when its name pops up.


I guess this shouldn't be a surprise because sometimes when I play regular games, I get a little weird.  In college when playing Uno I was the happiest person in the world when I found people who would cheat play with me.  I'd dress for the occasion and everything.  We'd stick cards into the hood of our sweatshirts, slip them up our sleeves, push them down a sock.  And it was acceptable to the other person, as long as you were sneaky enough not to be caught.  We'd start a game out with 7 cards and in 2 turns be totally out of cards.  That lasted until I realized people other than those particular friends became VERY incensed when I played Uno this way with them.  My husband will still bring it up pretty much every time play a game. They felt it was a display of my integrity or something. 


The first computer game that nearly ruined my life was The Sims.  
It started out innocently and then escalated into a situation that nearly ended my engagement.  Things soon got to the point with this game where I actually started seeing The Sims world in my own.  If I cleaned up a room or turned on a light, I pictured my energy being better like my Sim's family.  


Things became progressively worse until one day I nearly lost it all.




My then fiance came over to visit me one evening after work.  I was sitting at the computer playing Sims (duh).  I don't remember anything other than Sims, but he tells me the evening went like this:


Honey, I'm here now.  Can you stop playing that for awhile?


What?  I'm just going to play for a second.  I've only been playing for a minute or two.


No, you've been home for three hours and when I called you then you were playing.


Oh, really?  Weird.


Honey.  Please stop.  (Here he started getting angry.  It would have been good if I had caught that social cue.)


Honey?  


OK, why don't I just leave then so that you can sit here and play that stupid game all night?  


What?  OK then, if you want to go.  Bye.


Slam.  


I don't remember what ended that obsession for me, but I remember going through the shakes and delirium that come with an addict's withdrawal when I stopped playing.  I'm pretty sure at one point I felt the sensation of bugs crawling on me.


Life went on smoothly until Snood.  Snood seeped into my veins and became the only part of me that mattered.  I remember vividly one time I came home from work for lunch.  I didn't eat, just wanted a Snood fix.  I sat down to play, and when I blinked for the first time I realized I was supposed to have returned to work a half hour prior.  Not my finest adult moment.


Blessedly my Snood period ended quickly and tragically, when it turned out that it was a virus that ate my entire computer.  It seriously resulted in needing an entirely new computer brain.  


So this brings me to today.  **wringing hands**


I've discovered Angry Birds.  


I'm scared.  Hold me.  Help me.  Help.  Me.