Candy Crush and Mom

An Open Letter of Apology to the Universe

Dear friends, family, professional acquaintances, people I've randomly met, and the parents of people my kids know:

At the ripe old age of 43, I know that I am fortunate to be in the vast minority of people in that a) both of my parents are alive, and b) my parents are married to each other.  Their secret to a long marriage?  My Dad says it boils down to this simple maxim: Communication is Overrated.  I'm not sure I agree, but you can't argue with the fact that if you aren't talking about important things, you also aren't fighting about them.  But that's a topic for another day.  As a result of my parents existence and willingness to sit in a car together for ten hours (they listen to books on tape to avoid Conversation) and a desire to see their grandchildren, my parents came to visit me a few weeks ago.  No, I misspoke.  They didn't come to visit me.  At this point, they could not care less about me.  They came to see their grandchildren.

But again, I digress.

My Mother, as I have said earlier, has quite the obsessive personality.  Whatever she does she does in full force and with complete monomaniacal devotion.  Her current obsession is Candy Crush Saga, an insipid yet thoroughly addicting game that works better when you get 'lives' and 'boosts' from friends.  I have taken great pains to avoid Candy Crush Saga, as we cannot deny our genetics. 

My Mother was flabbergasted that despite the fact that our family owns two laptops, two iPods, two Kindle fires, and a smartphone, that Candy Crush Saga was not downloaded anywhere.  As we started out at the lake house where there is intentionally no WiFi or internet connection, she had to wait until we got back to our house in Loganville, a full 60 hours, until we could download it.  I'm pretty sure she wore down some expensive dental work gritting her teeth to shake off the withdrawal symptoms caused from going cold turkey so unexpectedly.

Within 6 milliseconds of the program downloading, she snatched my laptop from me and began to play.  Thinking she did not need supervision, as for many many years she was in charge of supervising me, I left her alone with her addiction.  That was a mistake.  While I wasn't looking, she somehow hooked up the game to my Facebook account, and requested lives and boosts from every single one of you.  I mean every single one of you, including my Facebook 'friends' that in person I only refer to as 'Sir' or 'Ma'am'. 

To all of you, I apologize.  I'm sorry that my Mom asked you for a lollipop hammer.  I'm sorry that the request looked for all the world like it came from me.  I'm sorry my mother asked you in my name for extra lives and probably a kidney or a first born child to be sacrificed so that she could advance to the next level.  I'm sorry.  I'm really sorry.  And I'm equally sorry that now that she is no longer in town and some of you have asked for reciprocity and I get a bazillion notifications about your requests that I have no idea how to respond to or give you that thing that looks like a sprinkle doughnut that you asked for.  I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.  Don't judge me by the acts of others.  Don’t visit the sins of the Mother on the Daughter.  But please, for the sake of my sanity, if "I" send you requests again, please honor them.  Those swedish fish looking things are really useful.