I was at my parents home over this past weekend. This was the first time I had seen my dad since I found out he had cancer. He seems to be doing fine, but is more tired then usual. He has decided to give up golf primarily because after 40 years of golfing the PGA hasn’t called him yet and by now doesn’t figure they are going to.
When I had a few minutes alone I asked him how he is really feeling, I ask him to not give me any B.S. as I want the truth. He looks at me almost insulted and says, “I feel fine, when have you ever known me to lie?” I told him never but that I could see him not telling anyone how he feels because he doesn’t want anyone to worry about him. To this he says, “Well I might do that.” Jerk!
Speaking of competition, one of my buddies and I used to frequently play each other in video games. We would typically play anything where the object was to shoot each other. From time to time we would have a third person join us. This was way before playing video games online was the hip thing to do. So in my living room that was maybe half the size of the sun room, there would be three tv’s that were at least 27 inches or larger, three Xboxes (the original model) and cords everywhere.
My friend that I did and still do play with is like a brother to me. We have respect for each other as human beings and as friends and don’t ever cross the line with what we say to each other. If we do, the other person let’s them know.
What’s funny though is that when we play video games together, the respect, the courtesies, the kindness, disappears. We use language towards each other that would probably make a sailor’s toes curl and often end up creating our own curse words. My wife, who doesn’t like video games at all, would listen to us and laugh.
One time, I was giving him a particular good ass wupin’ and I see him biting his xbox controller. I am not lying about this, he is actually biting his controller. I laugh hysterically (it is much easier to find things funny when you are winning).
When I lose, which really wasn’t very often, I have a string of seven swear words that don’t really even make sense when they are used together in the same sentence. One day I sent my buddy a text message with those seven words for no reason. The response I got was, “I miss that.”
I’ve often wondered why the tempers flare so much and the only explanation I can figure is something like how brothers hate to lose to brothers. Although I haven’t been able to get him to play me lately, we have fun in our epic video game battles. I’m pretty sure he is scared of the ‘gunshow’ I bring him to each time we play.
