It’s Summertime. And a few weeks ago I signed up for a Post A Day challenge that encourages writers to post every day about what inspires them. For the uninspired, the nice people at wordpress.com even provide a question, sentence, or topic designed to spark some thoughts or musings on a random daily topic. While I think that’s nice, I’ve rarely if ever done things the easy way while accepting help from others. It’s a total character flaw, I know. Believe me, I have PLENTY to say EVERY day. It’s just that sitting down at the computer with time to myself isn’t easy to come by during the summer, and IF that were to happen I’m afraid not all of my sentences would be coherent. I don’t want to write about what everyone else is writing about, but I guess that’s OK since I’ve missed a few daily posts. I keep waiting for a BIG RED X to pop up on my screen lately when I hit the publish button like I’m a contestant on a game show that’s going to get kicked off for non-compliance. Question for today:

People are too dependent on technology: agree or disagree

Answer: ABSO-FREAKIN’-LUTELY!!!!!

Today, I had the bright idea to head out to the book store and let go of a few precious dollars all in the name of Good Educational Old Fashioned Fun! G.E.O.F.F. was supposed to be my friend. GEOFF was supposed to provide for good kid-friendly face-to-face interaction that Wii are too often missing in today’s world. GEOFF dropped the ball and cost me a fortune therefore GEOFF sucks! I dropped forty bucks on a modern-day Monopoly board game that the kids agreed to play with me ONLY because Mario and Luigi were on the cover. Let me please point out that I did NOT know that the game was supposed to be worth its weight in gold until I arrived at the register and the smart-looking-Harry-Potter-Fan cashier requested $68 for two paper-back books and a family board game. I’m pretty sure when the marketing genius behind THAT endeavor presented his idea FOR the board TO the board, we were all called SUCKERS and the fat cat toy execs had a few laughs and cigars at our expense. At least I thought, I won’t walk in on another conversation like THIS again like I did this morning with the Wii:

No, Sis! PLEASE!!! MOM, Sis is trying to make me kill myself!!

But I’m doing it to help all of us. Why can’t you see that??

You think you’ll get farther without me?

Of course! I keep telling you that {eye roll}

Fine. I’ll do it then. I’ll kill myself, but next time you have to be the one to do it, OK?

Fine. Whatever.

Seriously. This can’t be good. It certainly can’t be healthy. I guess the teamwork they were discussing by having one player fall on the virtual sword in order to keep the other player alive in the game WAS a plus though, right?? Perhaps a board game with ZERO technological stimuli would be really beneficial, and we could stare into each other’s game face rather than blankly at a television screen like zombies of the 21st century. Oh, yeah!! It’s ON like Donky KONG! I’ll take my roll with the dice on this one.

We played the board gamed, and the kids got bored but not before money was embezzled, names were called and screaming ensued. GEOFF let me down, and you know who I think was behind it?? MARIO. And LUIGI. My kids have learned to expect immmediate gratification and when things don’t go well, there’s always a reset button, right? Wrong! Not in this real version of the game of Life. Maybe that’s the game I’ll try next and they’ll listen to my words of wisdom. And if that doesn’t work, I’m bringing GEOFF outside with scooters and a fishing pole and he’s going to prove how fun he can be among the sweat, mosquitoes and mud I’ve been trying to avoid. It will be good and educational! It’ll be old-fashioned fun at its finest! Wish me luck.