My wife and I recently discovered chicken and waffles and have gone insane over them. She bought some of these to satiate the beast.
If you close your eyes real tight when you eat one, it’s like you’ve licked the fork that someone else used to eat chicken and waffles.
Like a lot of people, I have dealt with depression my entire life. And like a lot of people who suffer from it, I have my up days and down days. One day I might feel almost “normal” (whatever that means), and the next I feel like I’ve done nothing worthwhile with my life, contributed nothing to my family or society, or I am just nothing, period. It’s something that I’ve learned to cope with, but it is constantly a work in progress.
I distinctly remember my first severe feeling of overwhelming depression, a crushing sadness that made me want to cease existing right then and there. I was four years old.
Yes, four.
I was outside at the daycare playground, away from all the other happily playing kids, and I was staring at the sandy ground. I felt my chest cave in from what I believed to be loneliness, even though I was surrounded by yelling children. But it was more than loneliness; it was a deep sadness about…something. I felt as if everything was too much, there was no reason to continue, and everything was just too hard and too painful to go on. I didn’t make any noise, but I watched as a couple of tears beaded up in the sand when they hit.
Four.
How in the hell can a four year old feel that life has nothing left to offer? How can it seem life is barren when I would one day discover Star Wars and X-men comics and Dungeons & Dragons and Minecraft and The Simpsons and everything else that makes life so entertaining and wonderful? Like boobies. I hadn’t yet seen boobies since I started storing permanent memories. I would eventually store images of a lot of these. Mostly in pairs.
As I got older, I assumed my depression was just part of life, something that everybody went through. I was a fat kid who was constantly belittled, ridiculed, and cast out, as children often do to each other. Even so-called “friends” made fun of me behind my back, but with no self confidence or any self-esteem, I never sought out new ones. One by one, I quit social activities: Tee ball, Boy Scouts, even a D&D club in junior high. By this time I was paranoid that everyone was making fun of me, and I would cling to one or two people, thinking they were true friends and would always have my back, the kind of people you grow up with and know each other in and out, the Hollywood definition of “Childhood Friends.” I haven’t seen any of those people since the internet was invented.
In my teens and throughout my twenties, it got bad enough that I obsessed about suicide. I never got close enough to attempt it, but I thought about it. A lot. Like, way too much. I even wrote stories about it (still do, actually). As far as I know, I still haven’t done it.
But things slowly got better. Some good things happened and started cancelling out some of the bad. I eventually learned to tell my brain to stop being so stupid and to start thinking rationally. Everyone wasn’t out to get me. I wasn’t as incompetent as I believed. I still think I am incompetent, just not as much as I originally thought. It’s a slow process and one that I still have to concentrate on and force myself to go through the steps of talking myself out of the depression. Sometimes it works. A lot of times it doesn’t. The scales are starting to tip though, and for that I’m happy.
But now I have a new concern, a new worry that plagues me. My daughter will be four years old soon, the same dread age I was, and it’s making me relive my memory again and again. I don’t want her to have the same crushing depression, the overwhelming sadness that I had. I don’t want her to have that distinct memory of the first time severe depression overcame her. I always try to be happy around her, forcing myself if need be, but sometimes the depression slips through the cracks, the happy mask hangs askew on my face, or she can see the sadness in the back of my eyes. I’ll catch her looking at me and she asks, “What’s wrong, daddy?” and it kills me. But then she hugs me tight and tells me, “Everything is going to be ok,” and that “We very much love each other,” and I hug her back and think you are the best thing that happened to me and you cancel out a lot of the bad.
That and boobies.
I attended GenCon last week, and I played a lot of games. I played a lot of bad games, I played a lot of great games, and I played a lot of great games badly. Mice and Mystics was definitely one of the great games I played. Did I play it badly? I stretch no truths telling you that I am The Worst Mouse™.
We encountered perpetual lines of eager gamers waiting to demo this game on Thursday and Friday, So Saturday morning when the doors opened, my wife and I elbowed a cute pixie, nine people dressed as the 11th Doctor, and a Super Saiyan with a glandular disorder out of the way to reach the table in time to grab the last two open seats. Across from us sat two other excited adventurers who were also unable to play the previous days, and after some quick introductions the demo began.
The game is about a group of mice that must find their way through a castle dungeon while fighting rats, roaches, and centipedes. You collect cheese along the way, all important cheese that powers your special abilities, gives you hope, and tastes yummy.
Our mice were assigned to us randomly. My wife was Nez, a burly smith with a two-handed battle hammer (fitting, in truth). Prince Collin, a dashing swashbuckler with a sword, and Tilda, the healer with a giant mace were assigned to the ladies across from us.
I received Maginos. He casts spells poorly and has a stick.
“Stop or I will point a stick at you!”
We began the game in earnest with the others striking down some attacking rats. Instead of fighting with my long stick, I bravely hid and searched for cheese. What did I find? Nothing! Why? I am The Worst Mouse™.
The others were loaded with cheese, as it burst forth from fallen foes like geysers of yellow blood. Prince Collin, who I was quickly beginning to distrust, was swimming in cheese like Scrooge McDuck in a strange world where cheese is currency.
Since the others cleared the room of bad guys, we decided to move on. We dropped through a drain and into fast-flowing sewer water. Rats closed in us from the sides! The others quickly scampered out of the water. I tried and failed and was slowly swept away by the current. Because I am The Worst Mouse™.
I finally made it out of the stinking sewage, just in time to see Nez fall to the bite of a vicious centipede. Prince Collin handed me some of his cheese, which caused me to flash hot with anger and jealousy, but there was no time! As Tilda rushed to try and heal Nez, I quickly nibbled the Prince’s cheese, which allowed me to loose a crackling bolt of Chain Lightning! This attack dramatically missed all the attacking creatures by a wide margin!
Despite all my rage, I am still just a horrible mage.
Because I was unable to destroy any of the creatures, Tilda quickly succumbed to the centipede, followed by the piercing death rattle of Prince Collin. I felt a deep loss for sweet Tilda, but Prince Collin pretty much got what he deserved. Suck it, cheese eater.
Having eaten everyone else, the centipede turned its full attention toward me. I felt, for lack of a better phrase, like a rodent lost in a labyrinth. Actually, there is probably a better phrase for that. As his shadow loomed over me, and I failed my defensive rolls like a pro, my last thought was, “I am truly The Worst Mouse ™. Ever.”
badaftertaste 