A Gamer's Mentality: The Game World Seeping into Reality

Seven o'clock AM on a cool Michigan morning, I arrive at the farm to feed the cows. The fence charge is unusually low, so I investigate. The cows won't come when called, so I venture back into the field. Upon finding them, I inspect the fence they are near. Nothing. So I lead them back for food.

There are some path finding issues. Several of them begin to wander straight into enemy territory and I must herd them back the right way. One of the cows gets ahead of me and gets hung up on the corner of a gate. He starts clipping back and forth, blocking the path for the rest of the cows, who begin to bunch up in a pile.

Moments like these have become common in my reality. That is to say, moments that do not exist in reality. A gamer sees the world in a completely different way from everyone else, the normals....

Another cool morning feeding the cows. As I step over the fence and turn the corner, I notice two cows have broken into the pen with our 3-legged cow (Fact or Fiction? You decide) and are eating all of her hay. I chase them out and begin repairing the broken fence.

Several towers and some traps later, I notice the oncoming horde of enemy soldiers. I hunker down in the hayloft and watch. They approach my defenses and stare longingly inside, then wander past one by one. This wave has been held off, but will my measly defenses hold up to the next one?

We've all had moments like this, right? After trying to master Queens of the Stone Age's No One Knows in Guitar Hero for days, I will forever see colored bars flying past my face when I listen to that song. After playing Burnout Legends on PSP obsessively for weeks, I couldn't ever pass a lawn service trailer with the ramp down and not think about hitting it full speed.

This is either a common thing, or I'm a psycho. If it is the latter, then you can assume that this entire article has been a work of fiction. I mean, three-legged cow? Really? That's just ridiculous.