I cut my teeth on text adventure games, punk. Chess played on boards mapped out with letters and numbers. “Air Traffic Controller”. “B2 Bomber”. I tried ‘em all and walked away. I was a tough guy.

Maybe it was the office. The fluorescent lights and tie that clipped on too tight. But my first time did something. I was just experimenting. Doing something while I was waiting for my boss to approve a report I’d written. What’s the harm, right?

No one tells you the rules when you first play Minesweeper. For me, that was my final chance. I clicked randomly about and faced the inevitable result. BOOM! I died. What a dumb game. I should have been annoyed and took a hit of C. But I had time and a curious disposition. I wanted to know /why/ I died. So I tried again, and spent time studying what was going on. Pretty soon, I beat it. I got the little yellow smiley with sunglasses and suddenly I felt …

Cool.

My boss came back with feed back, and I alt-tabbed back to something more productive-looking with smooth professionalism. He liked my work and I was a stand-up guy, so I wasn’t hurting anything by going back to Minesweeper as soon as he walked away.

I stayed late at the office that night.

Pretty soon, I bought a PDA with Minesweeper on it. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a common thing. It’s not like it’s illegal or something. Except, sometimes, while I was being paid to do something for the company, I’d sneak off to the men’s room. I’d sit there for an hour on a seat lined with toilet paper garland trying to best my previous time. And I made sure I had great scores on all the difficulty settings. Even though no one else ever used my PDA, I didn’t want any long game times visible on the high-score list.

It’s a game of logic. And logic … that’s a thing of pride to computer people. Minesweeper /spoke/ to me. It became a metaphor for life in the corporate world. No! Life. Period. Everything seemed so much clearer when I did Minesweeper.

These days, I’m all alone. The wife left me and took the kids. The bank foreclosed. I’m out on the street living in a cardboard box with my dog, and even that mutt died because I didn’t have time to feed it.

But at least I have plenty of time to do Minesweeper.

And read The Agitator.

My best time on ‘expert’ is 262 seconds.

Yes, I am bored.