An Ultra-Rare Accomplishment

Okay, by now I hope we have established that Pig and I are gamer geeks. We met in a game store, for goodness' sakes. We still eagerly play the same online game when real life permits, and have been doing so for the past five years and counting. We have a method of not really competing with one another while telling each other that, "No, honey. You are so much better at this game than I am!"

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my darling husband managed to accomplish something neither one of us had ever managed to do before: encounter an ultra-rare monster. Not only did he encounter that ultra-rare beast, but he felled it easily, thus earning himself an ultra-rare item. Now, you might think that's just something stupid, and yes, you are correct. It is a virtual item in a game that has no real meaning at all. But it's fun, and it's a very special thing to have happen in this game. People might play forever and never encounter an ultra-rare monster. That's kind of what makes it "ultra-rare." Heck, it took Pig over five years of almost daily playing to run into one. He was ecstatic.

I, on the other hand, threw an almost immediate pity party for myself. The particular item that Pig won was one that I had been trying to find for years now. I was spending thousands of my turns in the one area in the game that this particular ultra-rare monster might appear, and he just happened to be there for a few turns one day and some random number generator decided he could have it. I did not even have it in me to feel happy for him. I felt like I was robbed. Jealousy is a nasty, hurtful creation, and I let it totally take over my emotions.

If my kidlets ever sulked like that over a game, I would have sent them to their rooms for time-outs.

Poor Pig's major in-game accomplishment was completely overshadowed by my immaturity. He wanted to give me his ultra-rare item. I refused it. He even sent off a message to the powers that be, requesting permission to gift it to his wife. (When multiple people play on the same computer ID numbers, the game sometimes thinks it is really the same person playing multiple characters, and sending spectacular items from one account to another can be perceived as "multi abuse," which can get all characters shut down.) I informed him that if he sent it my way, I was sending it back. I was just plain cranky and irritable.

Eventually, I realized that the hurt I was feeling was erroneously directed at my husband. I was taking out my frustration on a random number generator on someone that I love, and that is never acceptable. I wound up apologizing and slowly started to feel happy for my husband that he could have such a cool thing happen to him in the game we both enjoy. I even joked with Pig about how I have "forgiven" him for getting the dang encounter in the first place. I still felt my own frustration in not having an item I had been trying to get for years, but that frustration was directed at the people in charge of the game and at the random luck of the draw instead of at Pig.

I continued to spend my character's turns trying to find the same ultra-rare monster, but I doubted very much that it would happen. I just set up a script to play my turns for me (because seriously, do you know how boring it is to play the same few adventures over and over for thousands of turns?) and went about life.

Today, my silly script gave me an error prompt. Basically, it told me I had to play a turn by myself. It wasn't going to do it for me. That can happen under certain circumstances, and I've had to figure out the problem, finish the turn the old-fashioned way (pointing and clicking), and then re-set the script to run again. So when I clicked on the little red link telling me to play it myself, I was resigned to dealing with some mundane issue and then going off to do the dishes.

It was the same ultra-rare monster that Pig had encountered just a couple of weeks ago, but this time, it was for me.

In hindsight, I am quite glad that I did not receive my own ultra-rare item until I had grown up a bit. I was more or less at peace with not having one, and was simply going through the motions of trying for it. Now don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to have my very own ultra-rare item. But I was happy for my husband first.

I am currently putting that lesson to good use in a real-life application: I am trying to feel very happy for every other homeowner out there who is able to sell their house. I shall just go about my business of trying to keep the house clean for a potential buyer to see, and I shall rejoice when I hear of other people selling their houses. Here's hoping real-life will imitate my favorite online game.