The Waiting Game

What time is it? Where am I? What's going on? You guys, I'm a little out of sorts tonight. I only now just remembered that I hadn't posted a blog today. It's been a whirlwind evening. All day, there's been some alarm going off somewhere in my building and it's been making me act all wonky after listening to "BRRP! BRRP! BRRP!" for like 10 hours (and counting). After work, I took a nap then made a terribly unhealthy dinner, but it wasn't until about 3 hours ago that I made the biggest mistake of all.

I downloaded a game on my iPhone. A WAITRESSING GAME. There is something so incredibly addicting about this genre of video games for me. It started harmlessly, with an innocent purchase of a game called Diner Dash many years ago. It was the actual CD of the game that I put in my computer. That's how long ago it was.

All these "Dash" games consist of is WAITRESSING. The player is Flo and she serves people food, sometimes drinks, then clears their dishes and takes their money. The customers provide various levels of difficulty and timing, but it's essentially the exact same every freakin' level. I have lost SEVERAL hours to the Dash games.

The reason this is doubly weird is that I was once a waitress in real life during college. And I was REALLY BAD AT IT. Seriously. I couldn't get the timing down, I didn't have patience for indecisive customers, I forgot people's salsa roughly 90% of the time and on an average night, I'd pull in less than 10% in tips. Plus, I'm probably the clumsiest person I know. I just did not have the skill set necessary to be any good at it. I was so bad that my really good friend at the time, who was the manager at the restaurant where I worked, had to be like "Listen, you should maybe quit. Or I would have to fire you." Ouch.

So I don't know why I'm so obsessed with playing a video game version of the one job I was incredibly bad at. I thought I had kicked the Dash habit years ago. I had played the game for way too long and I eventually threw away the CD. A couple years later, I downloaded it again and got hooked again. I managed to give it up again and thought I was done with it for good.

Then today, when I was playing Words With Friends (a much more intelligent time-waster), a banner ad came up for WEDDING DASH. OMG. A Dash game that's WEDDING themed!? What are you doing to me, gaming gods?! Before I could repeat the 10 steps of addiction in my head, I found myself punching in my iTunes password and yelling at my phone for not downloading the game fast enough.

That was almost 3 hours ago. My phone battery died at one point and I sat against the wall charging my phone and playing simultaneously. The only reason I managed to pry myself away from the game - which, I should add, is EXACTLY the same as the other Dash games, but Flo serves wedding guests instead of customers - was because I wanted to talk to Geo before bed. I told him I had gotten hooked on another Dash game and he was like "OMG, you are a loser." And I was like "I know, I know. But listen, I've got tables waiting so I gotta run."