My teenagers have invisible friends.
No, not like imaginary friends – I
mean invisible friends; Friends who are totally real,
completely unseen, and right here in my living room.
Thanks to Xbox 360 and the magic of the
interwebz, our little home in Costa Rica occasionally becomes a
public place where people from around the world gather to trash talk
each other while they blow each other's heads off with an M4A1
assault rifle and impossible feats of digital acrobatics. Modern
Warfare, indeed.
It's not all that unusual to hear
German or Portuguese spilling out of the little black box, over the
rata-tat-tat of gunfire. Or some English bloke, calling attention to
his flawless “temperrr shot” or “Did you see that trips
colat?!”, in a perfectly sublime Harry Potter impression. And then,
of course, my kids have the added advantage of being able to chill
with other players in Spanish speaking countries, too. From what I've
heard, I can tell you that “noob” is a universal insult.
It may sound kinda loud and annoying,
but it's actually a pretty cool little feature. It allows my kids to
play their favorite games with their friends and cousins, who live in
the states, and they've also been keeping up with their classmates
over the break. And I've noticed that their conversations aren't
always limited to gamer geek jargon, like who's done a “360 no
scope” or whatever - sometimes they actually talk about the real
world and real life stuff. And I like that.
But there is one small problem...
If my kids have nothing to add to the
conversation (and since they don't have a headset to filter what gets
broadcast) they usually keep our living room on mute. They can hear
what's going on in the game, but the rest of the world can't hear us.
The problem is that sometimes they unmute us without
mentioning it, and then our home, our life, and our family goes on
auditory display for anyone who might be listening.
Now. I don't know what kind of
conversations your family has... but my family can be kinda
weird.
I didn't even know how weird I was
until I became aware that there were other ears in the room. By then,
my terribly syndromed middle child was crying out, “MOM! You're SO
embarrassing! Everyone just heard you yelling about Asexual Unicorn
Reproduction!” And I was like, “WHAT?! I
wasn't claiming it as fact, just offering it as a theory.
Sheesh! Relax, son.”
But really, I can understand why he's
upset. I mean, what teenager needs his Mom running around, ruining
his wannabe hard-ass-king-of-the-nerd-herd persona by calling out,
“Have you showered today? You better get off that video game
machine and take a shower so you don't get all itchy,
ya know... down there.”
Truly, the problem is working itself
out. My darling spawn are learning that if they want to keep up
appearances of any sort, they need to let us know when our words are
public fodder. But even more important, they learning that we're not
a family that's about “keeping up appearances”. So deal with it.
And they are now aware of the
fact that (particularly in this day and age, when “butt-dialing”
and “accidental DMing” are verbs) there's always the potential
for somebody out there to become the proverbial fly on the wall.
If you have secrets, you ought to be
very nervous.
If I didn't want anyone to know what my
family is really like, I would be nervous.
But what people hear when they slip
into our living room unnoticed is a family that laughs, plays,
bickers, taunts, teases, and giggles. A LOT. If they stick around
long enough, they'll likely hear some nasty fighting, some puffed-up
arrogance, some blatant disrespect, and some unparallelled
selfishness. For sure they'll hear a bit of homegrown douchebaggery.
Hopefully, they'll also hear the ferocious, protective Love of a
mother for her cubs, and the admiration of children for a worthy,
hard-working father (who probably won't be heard, because he's
hard-working, therefore, at work). They'll hear a clan that seeks
Jesus together, fails together, and moves forward through the mess
together. And, yes, sometimes they'll hear about Asexual Unicorn
Reproduction, or other silly stuff, because sometimes we talk about
really goofy, unimportant crap. Ok, fine. A lot of the time
we talk about goofy, unimportant crap. And I'm cool with that. In fact, I
love that about us.
So if, Dear Gamer, (while you're busily
“n00b tubing” or “lag switching” or “drop shotting”) your
ears grace my living room, have mercy. Real, funny, broken people
live within these rooms. We're kinda weird and kinda cool and kinda
silly. Sometimes we're kinda lame. And we're not gonna put on a show for
a fly on the wall. Nevertheless, you're welcome to stick around.
..... ...... .....
Ever been "caught" saying something stupid/weird/awful when you didn't know anyone was listening?
What kind of ear candy would a fly on the wall in your house be treated to?
