As a precursor to you reading this, let me first set the mood. You’re sitting in front of your computer (which cost $1500, and took you three months to save for at your crappy job), staring at the same glowing screen you’ve been staring at for the past 8 hours, getting up only to urinate and to grab a Mountain Dew to bring back to your desk. You’ve now officially spent more time playing World of Warcraft, or Lord of the Rings Online, or whatever today than you spent at work (where you don’t actually do any work, you just try to look busy as you scan fark.com). Suddenly you come to the realization that if you put as much time into your own life, and career as you did into the game, you’d be filthy rich, and you could actually afford to hire a “servant” (because slave, however accurate, is politically incorrect) to level your warrior for you.
That, the exact realization, is what I want to talk about. For me, the epiphany came while watching my old roommate Fred (we’ll call him Fred, because, well, that’s his name) spend an astonishing 18 hours a day playing good ol’ WoW, while not working, and much of the time not bathing. I began thinking of how nice our apartment would be, if only Fred would spent 18 hours working at a job. We’d be living the high life! We’d have a two-level penthouse in a high-rise downtown, women would flock to our dwelling, just to bathe in our obscene amounts of Cristal, and lesser men would bow before us. The sheer amount of time and effort Fred put into his lvl 70 paladin would have been enough to not only earn him vast riches, but the respect that only minor deities such as Brad Pitt have thus-far attained.
Okay, I admit, that is a little over the top, so, on a more realistic note, he would have at least been able to live comfortably. Fred could have made a least $11 an hour (I know this because we worked together, making that exact amount), and even at that rate, at 18 hours a day, he’d be making a lucrative $72,072 a year! Now, keep in mind, that’s 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. But, that number is entirely justified, as that’s how much time he actually spent playing. 72 grand a year is a lot of money. A lot. To put that number into perspective, that’s more than my parents’ combined income was throughout my entire life.
We all know people like Fred. Sure, they may have names like Charles, or Socrates, but they’re all Freds at heart. Hell, you yourself may even be a Fred. They’re all around us, and can usually be identified by their pale skin, tussled hair, and faint odor. You’d be hard pressed to see any specific Fred more than once, as they usually only venture from their respective homes long enough to head to the closest grocery store and stock up on frozen burritos and Mountain Dew. Do not try to make conversation with a Fred, because, as Jack Thompson has so subtly taught us, gamers are very dangerous, and should never be approached with anything other than the highest level of caution.
“So,” you may be asking, “after I have identified the Fred in my midst, what can I do to make it change its evil, masochistic ways?” And, in response to the question you asked so eloquently (aren’t you smart!), I give you two words: cold and turkey. Yes, I realize that was three words, but you were supposed to exclude “and” you moron. Anyway, back to the point! Cold and turkey. When you put those together, you get cold turkey (now we’re accomplishing something!), which is a term used to describe a method of quitting addicting activities, and it is also a term that makes absolutely no sense, but that is neither here nor there (another term that makes no sense, what’s up with that?). Okay, back on track, the only way to successfully beat the addiction (and because the AMA seems to think it qualifies as an addiction, we’ll call it that) is to remove the temptation.
You can accomplish this by hiding the Fred’s computer, or, if you have a bad back, and are unable to carry a computer, by dumping coffee on it. You can be assured* that the Fred’s MMO abuse will stop here, as it hasn’t had a job in months, and has just spent its last dollar on a bottle of Mountain Dew to help it stay awake through the 4 hour raid it organized at 2am last night. The Fred no longer has the financial means to buy another computer, and without its computer, it will be unable to pester its online friends into paying for another month on its account. Congratulations! Give yourself a pat on the back, you’ve successfully taken away all that your former friend had to live for!
*Unless of course, the Fred has rich parents, at which point your rehabilitation attempts will be hopeless.
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