After catching quick advertisements online about a new video game that is about to be released, as well as being given the green light by Super Hubs to share the story of our Gamer past-life  [ahem… before we had kids], I felt you and I could advance in our relationship.  M3 followers and I are close enough, I think, to impart my sillies without the fear of you passing judgment.  Right?  Now that that is settled, the preface to the story is as follows:

When Hubs and I were dating and living in separate apartments in the city, we found out by shear luck that we both like to play video games.  OK. OK.. Settle down.  I want to preemptively volley it out there:  I am not a normal female.  My brain works non-stop and needs constant stimulus. Not that that isn’t womanly, but that I use video games to quell those roaring neurons is the non-typical female attribute. And when I met husband I only slept 2-3 hours a night.  I was constantly computing in my head.  I worked from home, remotely and could pull weird hours (work all night, work all day). It was a Gamers’ dream life, upon reflection.

Once hubs found out that I like to play video games, he suggested we both play a lil’ game called Diablo I and II.  Now you moms out there might not know about the glorious-ness of Diablo, but M3 was hooked from the onset.  It came to a point, and this why the deliberation on To-Tell or Not-To-Tell was so long, Hubs and I would go out for dinner, part ways after a burger and a smooch, and he would return to his apartment and I to mine.  Headsets placed on, dialed into a network and we would play for hours.  Seriously… for hours.  We would even get a team of Diablo-II’ers to go to Hubs’ BFF’s office and we could play on multiple computers and conquer the underworld.  It was fun. Disturbing. And I was the only female.

At some juncture of this crazy life I thought Hub’s character was really stacked. I blamed it on years of playing with his BFF, so I suggested that we start from scratch.  Develop our players together and at a said time, we would actually compete against the other.  Done.  We erased former characters and began the assembly of some virtual bad-asses.

Every time we would rejoin, I would also note “My Hubs your player is tough.  How are your skills, strength and weaponry so much more advanced than mine?”  Hubs would mumble and we would continue to play.  After a month or two, shoot, could’ve been three,  I offered to now fight each other.  Game. Set. Match.  Hubs’ character beat my character fair and square.. Well at least squarely.  I was so disappointed but really in awe at his gaming skills.

About a week later, we were all out for happy hour with Hub’s BFF and his wife (who is my BFF).   The spouses went home and H-BFF and I were sitting and chatting.  I mentioned the fight against Super Hubs.

H-BFF:  “C’mon what do you expect when you buy cheats from EBAY?”

M3:  “Jigga, Huh?  Jigga, What?”

H-BFF:  [wiping his sprayed beer off my face] “Please tell  me you knew he was cheating…”

M3:  “I do now.”

So for an hour we worked out a strategy to expose Hub’s cheatin’ ways and H-BFF can get him back for putting him in a unknowingly-colluding position.   And then two nights after that hard-pressed-strategery, we were out eating dinner, and as if H-BFF was inside Hub’s brain… He SNAPPED the trap and Hubs was busted.

M3:  “H-BFF you should’ve seen it. Hub’s character was amazing. He beat me in three strikes!  Hubs… What is your secret?  Tell H-BFF…”

Hubs:  “Um… huminah huminah hum”

H-BFF:  “Yes what kind of character was it?”

Hubs:  [eyes darting to H-BFF’s face, communicating ‘shut-up dummy’] “I don’t know.. you need a beer?”

M3:  “No thanks I’m fine.  So I’ve been wondering if Ebay’s stocks have been going up… I hear it is really popular….”

H-BFF:  [scurried away]

Hubs:  “He told you?”

M3:  “Yes.  And now you must be punished.”

Now normally I kind of applaud some crafty cheating…if it is really out of jest.  Like the one time I ate Hubs’ wooden Hotel in Monopoly to avoid paying rent on his Hoteled Up Boardwalk.  Yes.  I did that.  It was there. He was looking away.  And I popped it into my mouth.  Hubs looked back at board.  Saw the one hotel that WAS there was now gone, and he darted his eyes to my gob.  I instinctively swallowed it.  It was embarrassing, but he still was in doubt if I had swallowed it or not.  Next day, it passed, floating in the loo.  I knew I was clear in the digestive area.  However, it took 2 years until I admitted to Hubs our Monopoly Game is down a hotel.  Mo’s favourite story, by the by.

Ok. So why was this such a big deal if I part-take in the cheating too?  I could easily respond and say “He started it!”   But more realistically, it is because when our characters faced-off, and my character ….um.. DIED.   The video game will leave the ear of the dead laying on the ground for the victor to collect and carry in their booty.  It is your reward for slaying.  He still has my character’s ear. Won’t delete it. Won’t let me carry it.  I don’t even know if he has sold in on Ebay, but I put nothing past this man. And the end result?  We now don’t really play games together.

Plus the last game of Risk that we played when I was 8 months pregnant and he was winning, seriously almost made me do a Tyson myself.