Candy Crushing My Soul

I have a completely unnatural love of silly, cartoonish, pastel colored video games. If they have cute animals and campy music, even better!  Super Mario is my all-time favorite.  It started with my love of the original and my very first NES and has continued until present day with my New Super Mario Bros. for Wii.  I haven’t upgraded to the Wii U yet…. But I am sure it’s only a matter of time. 

 Coolest room EVAR!!

I guess I shouldn’t say that I only love silly, foo-foo games. My sister and I used to have epic, marathon Mortal Kombat battles.  We were pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I always wanted to be Reptile, and she was always the scary long haired lady, whose name now escapes me.  

FINISH HIM!!

 I have never really been into PC games for the simple fact that after years and years and years of console games, my fingers do not cooperate fast enough on a keyboard.  Which makes no sense to me because I type alllll day long.  For some reason though, I cannot navigate a game using the arrow keys and a mouse the same way I do a controller.  It’s like trying to write my name with my left hand.  Rhys thinks that PC games are the way to go, the bees knees….. we have agreed to disagree, haha.  But I think secretly he knows that I am right. Console games are far superior, at least in the cute-cuddly-woodland creature genre. 

 How I imagine all PC gamers..... except my boyfriend!

One thing that I have never been into though are games on my phone.  90% of them seem like a stupid waste of time, first of all (not at all like my Super Mario!). And secondly, I don’t want them cluttering up my screen.  I played Words with Friends for about a minute before I got bored with it. The same thing happened with Hanging with Friends and then Song Pop.  I gave them all a fair shot, but ultimately could not stay interested for any period of time and shortly deleted them from my phone. 

But then Candy Crush happened. 

I heard people talking about it and I scoffed.  Yes I did. I was thinking to myself “these people are dumb and easily amused”.  And I felt secretly superior to them in the same way that I did when all my friends on Facebook were playing Farmville, which I was sure was the most pointless waste of time EVER. I was spending an obscene amount of time constantly adjusting my settings so that I didn’t have to see all my friends’ game-related updates.  I am only slightly interested in what you had for lunch, or did for your anniversary, so I am completely uninterested in what level you just got to in a game that I think is stupid anyway. I am like negatively interested to the inth degree, if such a thing were possible. 

One day I was giving a friend of mine a hard time about playing Candy Crush and he said to me “It’s so addicting, I can’t help it!  You can’t see that I am playing it, can you??” Like he was worried people would know.  I had this brilliant idea of trying the game out and then posting a blog about how ridiculous it is that people are crazy about it. 

And that is when my life changed forever. 

I downloaded the game to my phone and tried it out.  At first I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was just as lame as I assumed it would be.  “Really, all you have to do it get three candies in a row?  This is offensive to my intelligence.  I am going to go read the encyclopedia now to make up for this brain drain”.

As I continued to play, for research sake (I swear!), I found myself more and more sucked in. I was unaware of how much time was passing. Surely I should have been doing something productive, like laundry, or walking the dog, or balancing my check book.  Instead, I continued to sit there and play, for hours. I am not proud of this fact. 

At some point Rhys asked me what I was doing and I shamefully admitted that I was playing Candy Crush. I could see the look of disdain in his eyes. He was judging me, just as I had judged all the others.  He laughed and made some joke about me being sucked in like everyone else, and I recognized the tone of condescension in his voice because I had surely sounded the exact same way when teasing my friends. As much as I was ashamed, at that moment it was more important that I create a color bomb and get past level 85!

For the next few days every time Rhys would catch me staring blankly at my phone he would ask me what I was doing and I would declare that I was “Crushing all the candies!”  On a few occasions, while lying in bed, he would watch me play and offer helpful suggestions on the most effective move to use. 

The couple that plays phone games in bed together, stays together!

About a week later I noticed Rhys sitting quietly and staring very intently at his phone. When I asked him what he was up to, he hesitated to answer. It was only when I walked over to him that I caught him. He was playing Candy Crush!!!  

I feel responsible for introducing him to this soul-sapping time waster!!  

Now, we are locked in a Candy Crush battle! Who can get to the highest level?  He says that I have an unfair advantage because I started playing before he did. It’s a valid point, but I don’t care because I am winning!

How is it possible that I have become one of them? One of those silly Facebook game players.  It wouldn’t be so bad except in an effort to not have anyone know that I was so enthralled, I refused the “ask friends for help” function in the game and instead chose to pay the fee every time I advanced to the next level.  I am spending my hard earned money to advance in a game that 2 months ago I thought was the dumbest thing ever created! 

I may need an intervention. Just sayin. HELP ME!!