My Mom Pwns Noobs

Part 1 of 3

Ok, ok, first of all, I must confess that the title of this little write-up should really be ?My Friend Tim?s Mom Pwns Noobs?, but that just didn?t flow. It was too long, too wordy, and not all that funny. Plus, you guys have no idea who Tim is. So I went with ?My Mom Pwns Noobs?, even though Connie isn?t really my mom. My mom?s name is Rose, and Rose still thinks video games are a waste of time, and that we should all go play outside. Look, it?s complicated, ok? Just never mind.

What you need to know is that this story is about Connie. Now far be it from me to ask a lady her age, so let?s just say this: Tim, Connie?s son, is 42. Of course, this means that Connie isn’t exactly your typical 17 year-old gamer. And that demographic alone makes Connie quite the unconventional player.

But that?s not the whole enchilada. No no no, there?s oh-so-much more. You see, Connie isn?t just a gamer, she?s actually a two-fisted, cutthroat, competitive gamer. In fact, you might even call her ruthless. Of course, that?s just another part of the paradox. You wouldn?t know it to look at her. Connie is extremely sweet, she?s kind to a fault, she?s soft spoken, and she?s one of the nicest women I know. She?s as sweet as pie.

Still hardcore after all these years

Until you put a controller in her hand.

It all started in the late 70s, and it?s such an unusual story that we thought that you, the discerning readers of WanderingGoblin.com, should know all about it.

The Single Mom

Back in the day, Connie was newly divorced, living with her son Tim in San Diego. She was raising little Timmy-boy all by herself. Tim?s dad wasn?t really in the picture, and Connie had to make a buck so she could keep food on the table and buy toys for little Timmy and pay the rent and all that kind of thing. So she took a job in a Mexican restaurant named Casa Don Diego.

Now being a hostess wasn?t exactly the most challenging job in the world. People came in, Connie seated them, made sure they got started with a couple of drinks, and sent the waitress over to take their orders. ?I was the hostess for a long time at that place, because I was consistent,? she said. ?The owner liked me. I showed up every day. It?s not hard.?

Connie gave us the scoop on some of her fellow waitresses: ?Some of the girls found hostessing and waitressing too challenging. I have no idea why. It ain?t rocket science.? In fact, according to Connie, working at Casa Don Diego was all pretty routine. And sometimes there was some downtime. Some nights there were almost no customers for hours on end.

This is a pic of a tiki being held hostage by terrorists. It doesn’t have anything to do with our story, but the article needed a little action right about now

Eventually, the restaurant got one video game. They tucked it into a corner of the building, near the phones and bathrooms. ?When they brought in that Ms. Pac Man game, I wasn?t interested. The think was just a lousy noise-maker,? she said. ?I saw people play it, but couldn?t understand what was so darn riveting.? One day, that changed. ?One day I saw the ?high scores? screen. One of our customers had gotten the top score and I thought, ?I could do that.? So I played a few games, but I sucked. Then I started getting better, and eventually got my name onto that damn high scores page. And by then I was hooked.?

That was 1981.

Tim?s Mom, The Junkie

And like a crack addict, Connie kept going back to the Ms. Pac Man game in the corner of the restaurant. She played every day. ?That was a great game,? Connie says. ?It was my high. I knew the mazes and got my score higher every chance I could.? On top of that, Connie was much better than her son, Tim. In fact, he couldn?t touch her scores. Being able to crush her teenage son at a video game gave Connie a feeling of pride. ?Video games are a teenager thing. I wasn?t a teenager; I was a mom. Being able to whoop them was fun.?

Connie shows off some of her moves

The best nights were the slow ones. She could play for half an hour, sometimes longer, without interruption. And Connie had something of an early hack, one that made it so that she never had to pay: she knew where the key was.

For those of you who may not be all that familiar with arcade gaming, lemme give you a bit of history. See, every arcade game has a key. The key opens the front panel, and allows for emptying the money from the machine, clearing stuck coins, and that kind of thing. There?s also a button in there, so that the attendant can put credits ? basically free games ? into the machine. Press it once, you get one free credit. Press it twenty times, you get twenty credits. You get the idea.

?I never paid. If I had to put quarters into the game, I wouldn?t have played it so much. But once I found that key,? she laughed out loud, ?it was easy to get free games. And it was pretty addicting, so I kept getting the key, and putting in the free credits, and playing for as long as I could.?

A Contender Becomes a Champion

As Connie got better at the game, she began to bump people off the leader boards. ?I remember the first time I got my name on the ?High Score? board. That was pretty cool.? Though she wasn?t the highest scorer on the machine, she knew she was competitive. And she was determined to get to the top. ?Pretty soon I was pushing the wanna-bees completely off the board.?

Connie had her share of challengers, though. All this took place in the arcade era, and because it cost money to play, players would specialize. A gamer would pick a game, and pump quarters into it until he had it mastered. (Most players never mastered more than one or two games.) ?Ms. Pac Man was a popular game, and people knew how to play it. They had skills. Every now and then someone would come in, play for a while, and bump my name off the leader boards. They usually didn?t get the top score, but one of the top 10 scores. They were challenging me, and I had to get my high scores back.?

A Champion Becomes An Obsessive Compulsive Psych Patient

Connie explained that, as she came to dominate the game, it wasn?t just the high score that mattered to her. Her obsession was such that every name on the leader board had to be hers. Every single one. ?I owned that game. Nobody got to stay on that board. If they did, I had to knock them back off.?

A champion doesn’t take any crap

This got a lot easier once she got promoted to office work. She could take her lunch or her breaks at the Ms Pac Man machine. Then Connie really got her big break: the office work led to a position as Assistant Manager. ?I was the boss,? said Connie. ?I could play that machine as much as I wanted.? We asked how long she?d be at the machine. ?Well, to get high score you?d have to play for at least an hour, maybe two hours, straight. At that point I didn?t ever see the ?Game Over? screen. The game was over when I got tired and walked away.?

Connie rarely knew who her challengers were. ?Every now and then someone would have a high score. I usually didn?t know them. Some guy in his teens or 20s would play for a while, and get a pretty good score. When I saw it, I had to knock him off.? There were no real rivals to Connie?s dominance. ?They usually didn?t come back after I cleared their name,? said Connie. ?I owned that game, and everyone knew it.?

Forced Into An Early Retirement

Connie?s reign as champion lasted a few short years. One day, without warning, it all got washed away. No, really, it literally got washed away.

?One day there was this huge flood. Huge. The entire restaurant was soaked under 6 or 8 feet of water. It was built in a wash or something, and got flooded to just under the ceiling.? The Ms. Pac Man Game? ?Destroyed. And they never replaced it.?

Connie’s flood was a lot like this one, only worse

So Connie was forced into retirement. She also went into withdrawal. Retiring as a champion was a good thing, but she found that now she had a bad itch for gaming. And that itch wasn?t very easy to scratch. She tried different games to fill both her desire to game as well as her competitive streak. Some worked better than others.

?Back then, little handheld games were popular. I got me some of those, and they were pretty fun.? They were simple games ? card games, or arcade game knock-offs ? with red LED or gray LCD screens. Tim said that he?d come home from work and find that his mom hadn?t moved all day. She?d be in the exact spot he left her, holding the exact same game, still tapping keys like mad. ?Her scores were impressive, though,? he laughed. ?But I knew, when she was like that, that she wasn?t gonna make dinner.?

The problem with handhelds is that they didn?t really lend themselves to competition, and competition was one of the things that made Connie tick. That was all about to change.

Coming Soon:  Connie plays World of Warcraft; Tim?s buddies get their asses kicked by Tim?s mom; playing for money; and Connie gets wrist surgery. Stay tuned!