play time

i don't pretend to know much of anything about video games -- two notable exceptions being the ever-popular commodore 64 classics, burger time and maniac mansion (circa 1989). and, no doubt owing to the fact that my phone's about as un-fancy as they get (sorry, did you say you wanted to send me a photo? *bewilderment*), this ignorance extends to all cell phone gaming as well. all of this may explain how i ended up very inaccurately assessing the wild gesticulations of the smoker-voiced, leather-faced, sixty-something woman seated beside me this morning.

when i glance in her direction, it becomes clear that she's playing a game on the phone she's holding over her lap. but, just moments earlier -- while i'm engrossed in reading about canada's official languages and can see her only out of the corner of my eye -- what i eventually come to understand as a vigorous index-finger-led manual assault on her telephone screen (fastfurious and relentless, like a woodpecker on crack) initially seems a hell of a lot more like, er, an entirely other kind of desperation-infused solo act. (her sixty-odd years have generated some mad skills.) yikes! apparently, she just couldn't sit still while her husband was off fetching their drinks.

in the end, her (fr)antics remind me that there's a third video game i (somehow) knew as a pre-teen: leisure suit larry in the land of lounge lizards.

and now back to translating…